Untouchable
by Collier World
Summary: Modern AU. He was nobody, a barely-educated mechanic who lived for the off hours where he could escape to the back alleys and pitch pick-up baseball with other nobodies. No future. No purpose. Nothing. Then, a chance encounter with the daughter of a major league owner changes everything, and provides the stroke of fortune he needs to change his stars. Full summary inside.
1. Prologue

Untouchable: He was nobody, a barely-educated mechanic who lived for the off hours where he could escape to the back alleys and pitch pick-up baseball with other nobodies. No future. No purpose. Nothing. Then, a chance encounter with the daughter of a major league owner changes everything, and provides the stroke of fortune he needs to change his stars. Yet as he struggles to make his way on a level of his beloved game he's never even dreamed of, his stroke of luck worms her way into his heart, and threatens to unravel his one chance to change his life.

**Prologue**

He couldn't ever remember owning a TV, so he'd never seen the greats pitch. Rhaegar Targaryen, with a twelve-to-six curve so wicked hitters still ducked when it was clipping their shoelaces. Ned Stark, who threw six different pitches that did six different things while traveling ninety miles per hour. Not even Stannis Baratheon, reputed as much for his permanent stone cold expression as for his stone cold fastball.

None of them. They were all retired or dead by the time he even learned what baseball was. He had no father to teach him; his mother had never even told him who his father was, before she succumbed to cancer when he was but three. Maybe his father would have let him sit up late on weekdays to watch the Monarchs take on the most dangerous hitters and feared pitchers. Maybe his father would have dragged him to games, picked him up and sat him on the railing down the third base line and snagged the foul ball he had always dreamed of taking away from a big league game. Maybe his father would have done something—given a single shit about him at all—and maybe that something would have been about baseball.

Not quite something to lose sleep over, since he did not and would never know. Still... he couldn't help but wonder.

Incidentally, it was when he was being punished for punching a kid two years older and twice his size that he was first exposed to the game of baseball. Using curse words a six-year-old shouldn't know, he'd been cleaning out an old closet in a seldom-used part of the orphanage for his repentance and stumbled across a mitt that hadn't seen better days—it hadn't any days to begin with.

He knew what it was. He'd seen some of the kids from the orphanage playing with better ones, ones they'd bought with their priceless pocket change, and a boy who went to his school went everywhere with one, insisting he would make it pro when he grew up. The one he found was little more than a ratty leather glove with a stitched-on patch for the webbing, so worn that his fingers stuck through in two different places and when he slapped it with his fist he left a bruise on his palm. Nevertheless, as soon as it was on he decided he never wanted to take it off. In the space of a moment, the homeless, possessionless orphan he had been found a purpose to an angry, stubborn, angst-filled little life. He never really understood it; it was just a freaking glove, nothing to go crazy over, but from that moment on, he wasn't just Gendry the Stubborn Loser with No Friends anymore. He was Gendry the Kid With the Mitt, who went out to play the very next day with the orphans who owned the better baseball gloves and played ball for the first time.

His life was baseball from there on out. In the morning he snuck out early so he could grab the papers before the orphanage supervisors and memorize the box scores. Every day after school he was the one who started the pick-up games in the orphanage yard, and when the others were sick of it he stole one of the orphanage's few bikes (always putting it back later, of course) and rode to the nearby alley, where the older kids played. They didn't let him join in the first few times he showed up, but although he was at least five years younger than the majority of them he was nearly of a size, and when they finally let him pitch only two or three could catch up with his speed. Ever after, he was the coveted pick in King's Landing's inner-city pick-up games.

He never played for his school teams; he wasn't allowed to, on account of his grades. It wasn't because he was stupid; he was actually quite good at critical thinking, when given proper time to think, and his years of memorizing stats had given him a quick mind at math, as well. For some reason, though, he could never seem to concentrate in-class—admittedly, mostly, because baseball was on his mind. When he told this to his supervisors, they took him to a doctor, who then told him that he had some condition and that it wasn't his fault. Nevertheless, even with treatment he could never seem to stay focused long enough to put together a good report card. So the school fields of King's Landing were off-limits to him. Nobody saw him play. Nobody watched him pitch. It was only the streets that had sympathy for his insatiable need for the game, and it was only the streets that let him scratch the itch that told him to play, play, play...

It was just natural. It was him. He'd never known anything that felt so right as picking up a baseball and hurling it with all the strength his considerable mass could muster. During the day, at night, he was sifting through his mental reservoir of statistics, reaching for his mitt, dreaming of World Series moments and ninth-inning fastballs he could never have.

For the second, though, when he was toeing the rotted two-by-four they used as a rubber in the back alleys of the streets, wrapping his fingers around the laces of the ball, freezing the moment in time as his plant leg came down with unparalleled ferocity, it didn't matter that he didn't know his father, didn't have a future, didn't have someone who gave a damn about him enough to spend three minutes learning who he actually was.

All that mattered was when the second ended, and the ball left his hand. Because when it buried itself in the catcher's mitt, when the bat whooshed past it a half-moment too late, when the hitter swore and the fielders cheered, he meant something.

He was worth something. Not an orphan, not a nobody, not a street kid with no future. He was somebody. He was more. Undaunted. Unreachable.

Untouchable.


	2. Chapter 1

**1**

Arya Stark had never been so exhausted in her life, and it was still two months before finals even _began_. If she had been someone else, she would have broken down and complained. Loudly, too, as everything she tended to do was either loud or completely inconspicuous. That came partially from being a Stark, but it also came from her endless frustration with how the world treated her, as though she were a separate entity or shameless celebrity just because of what her name was.

_Well, that's also from being a Stark, isn't it?_ she dryly informed herself, pressing her forehead against the glass of the city bus as it rolled through the furious streets of King's Landing. It was a busy day, but then again they were all busy. The biggest city in Westeros never had any shortage of people with places to be or things to do, and it was all beginning to make her head hurt.

"This is exactly what you get for listening to Sansa," she berated herself, resisting the temptation to begin slamming her head against the window instead. "You _hate_ the South, why would you ever fucking agree to go to _university_ down here? And in the capital, too?"

It was a scolding conversation she had had with herself probably a million times since the beginning of fall, and every time her excuse was exactly the same, and enough to shut her other half up. _Because Spring Training is down here, and at least down here I can get away from Mother screeching at Father to sell the team and forget about baseball_.

Ah, yes. That was the reason. She closed her eyes against the glass and reminded herself of it, while still wishing she was dead. Her laptop had yet to stop crooning after her from the dorm room she'd left half an hour earlier, reminding her that the research paper due in a week still needed to be started. Add to that the midterm on Tuesday she had yet to study for and the speech for Friday that had half of an introduction written, and she was quite readyto hang up her cleats for the school year, drop out of college, and live in her parents' garage for the rest of her life. As long as her father still let her go to baseball games, that is.

Speaking of her father, she checked her watch to make sure she hadn't left too late, and was relieved to find that she was still on-time for the lunch date Ned Stark had set with his daughters. She glanced out of the window at the busy street to verify that the next stop was hers, and then waited for the bus to patiently grind itself to a halt along the sidewalk before shimmying her way down the aisle and out into the busy King's Landing day.

Arya was not too fond of the big city. At almost six million people, it was almost twenty times the size of Winterfell and well over a thousand times as loud. She certainly acknowledged that it was good to be around people, sometimes, but she sorely missed the half hour drive she could always take in Winterfell out into the woods. She would walk for hours after school some days with Nymeria tagging along at her heels, comforted by the silent peace of the trees, before shooting home in time to catch the Direwolves' first pitch on the television with her father or driving to his private box at the stadium for the same purpose.

That was where she belonged. Not "testing her horizons" in bloody King's Landing. What a mistake. If the start of the regular season wasn't only a few days away in the first week of April she very well might have considered hopping a plane ride home and forfeiting her higher education.

Arya took a moment to get her bearings and then strode off, merging with the bustling crowd of the sidewalk in the direction of her father's favorite King's Landing sports bar. It took her only a few minutes to traverse the two-block journey and enter the familiar _Lannister's Lion Club_ at precisely twelve o'clock.

The lunch rush was on in heavy stead, but Arya knew her father had made a three-person reservation weeks in advance, in preparation for following his team south as the Direwolves played their final exhibition game against the King's Landing Monarchs. Knowing such, she pressed herself between the impatient bystanders waiting for reservation and eagerly scanned the tables arranged about the bar for her father. She hadn't seen Ned Stark since Christmas and had horribly missed their conversations about curve balls and clean-up spots that often stretched into a.m. hours.

It took only a few moments. First, she caught a glimpse of beautifully red hair and was unable to stop herself from comparing it gloomily to her own mud brown hair before she looked past her sister and saw the grinning, weathered but jovial face of Ned Stark. She pushed between tables as he caught sight of her and stood, his grin widening into a toothy smile. He opened his arms and she rushed into them without hesitation, letting him pick her small frame off the ground as they both laughed.

"It's good to see you, Underfoot," her father whispered in her ear as he set her down, his graying shoulder-length hair tickling her face.

She wrinkled her nose at the nickname, though reasoned it was infinitely preferable to "Horseface", as Sansa had used rudely when they were younger. Her father's endearment came from her quick feet and soft step, which had allowed her to break her high school's stolen base record in softball by only her sophomore year of school. Still, the way her father's players had taken it up when she'd visited the ballpark made it seem mocking rather than complimentary.

"I missed you, Dad," she told him warmly, as they both joined Sansa at the table. She felt underdressed, in shorts and a t-shirt to complement King's Landing's warm spring weather, while her father was in a sports jacket and Sansa sat pristinely in a business suit and skirt.

"As I did you," her father replied, clearly unconcerned with her state of dress. "I was just telling your sister how I tried to convince your mother to let me come down here a week early. She wouldn't have it, of course... couldn't even make her fly down with me for two stinking days to see you girls."

"I'm sure Mother wanted to come," Sansa said sweetly from across the table, and Arya glanced away as she rolled her eyes. Sansa _always_ played Catelyn Stark's advocate, and most of the time it got on Arya's nerves. In her books, only the love every daughter held for her mother kept her from distancing herself completely from her.

"She certainly misses you girls," Ned told them. "She wanted me to try convincing you to come home when the term ends, Sansa, instead of staying here. It would be quite nice to have the both of you home again, for the summer."

Arya snorted. "And have Sansa leave her precious fiancé for an entire summer? Unlikely."

Sansa glared daggers at her and Arya sighed. Usually the over-under on the two of them being able to civilly remain in a room with each other was around three minutes, but even that figure was being demolished by their quick turn towards argument. Arya had been trying to tell herself all week to enjoy the short amount of time with her father and not provoke her sister into ruining that, but it appeared as though she were already failing herself.

"Joffrey and I are already living together," Sansa retorted testily, her furious eyes unrelenting. "It would be awkward if I just up and moved out for the summer. Besides, Father, I don't want to be a burden on you and Mother any longer. I'm twenty-one, I should be able to spend a summer on my own without completely collapsing."

"Yes, you should," Ned agreed, with the familiar tactic of splitting his daughters apart before more than a few words could be exchanged, "and yes, you may. And I told as much to your mother. She just misses you both a lot and is conscious of the little time we have left with you before you're out and about in the world on your own."

"I'll be on my own a lot, anyway," Sansa said. "Joffrey will be on the road half the time. Maybe when the Monarchs travel to Winterfell I'll fly up for the weekend or something—"

"Careful," Arya spat, "or you might fuck up his concentration. Then he'll hit bad that series and blame you again."

"Arya!" her father and sister exclaimed at the same time.

"Language!" her father reprimanded.

"My presence is not the reason for Joff's slump!" Sansa proclaimed indignantly.

"His two-year _slump_?" Arya replied. "I think it's beyond the point of slump. Your handsome, muscular betrothed is just _bad_, and we both know why he's still on the team."

"That's _not true_!"

But Sansa's voice quivered, betraying her inner admission. Everyone marginally intelligent who watched major league baseball knew why Joffrey Baratheon was still on the roster and still in the starting lineup of the King's Landing Monarchs: his father, Robert Baratheon, one-time teammate of Arya and Sansa's father and a longtime Stark family friend, was the Monarchs' owner, and the Monarchs' other seven starters and starting rotation managed to claw out at least ninety wins a season despite their horribly-hitting second baseman. Joffrey had no arm in the field and a weak bat at best at the plate, but the Monarchs' manager would rather play the politics with Robert than risk his job by benching the young Baratheon.

Their dispute was broken up this time by a waitress bringing water and presenting them with menus. Sansa immediately hid her infuriatingly perfect face behind one, and Arya set hers aside without glancing at it, cooling down by glaring at one of the muted TV screens hanging about the bar's walls, this one tuned into a talk show that was apparently debating whether or not the Highgarden Flowers—how a major league baseball team could ever come up with such a humiliating and hilarious name was beyond Arya—would ever be able to compete for a pennant.

_Everyone already knows the answer to that_, Arya thought to herself. _No_.

The choosing of their lunch selections and the wait before the ordering of said items was perfectly silent. Sansa glared at Arya and Arya avoided catching her sister's eye, while their father stared at the tablecloth with a set expression, as though disappointed or tired.

Finally, after the waitress had returned for their orders, gotten them, and departed, Ned sat up again and said sarcastically, "Good to see college hasn't shaken your sibling affection for one another. On the subject of Joffrey, though, your mother asked me to inquire about an actual wedding date."

"We... still haven't set one," Sansa replied weakly.

Arya couldn't hold her anger back. "You've been engaged for almost a _year_, Sansa. Are you ever going to marry that piece of snot or not?"

"Arya," her father warned, but he was too late to stop her.

"Why do you put up with him?" Arya demanded of her sister, actually leaning across the table to go face-to-face with Sansa. "I don't understand it. I know we get in each other's hair all the time and never see eye-to-eye, but I don't like to see the way he treats you. It's not right, Sansa. It's not."

"What do you mean, 'the way he treats you'?" Ned repeated in a voice as cold as Winterfell, suddenly much more invested in the conversation.

"She doesn't mean anything," Sansa answered quickly.

"The hell I don't! Every time I see you with him he's yelling at you for some reason or another. I doubt that whatever gets him mad so often is _always_ your fault. I haven't seen you smile when you're with him since before he proposed to you. Every since he's started with the Monarchs he's been nothing but an abusive shit to you, and I don't know why you take it!"

Arya's exclamation left the table silent, Sansa staring at her in horror and Ned looking on in furious quiet. After a long moment, he threaded his fingers together and leaned against the table with a heavy weight as he turned towards his eldest daughter. "Is this true?"

"Yes. No! I—" Sansa looked about ready to burst into tears, though her face was contorted more in anger than in distress. Arya could always tell when her sister was about to cry, even before the signs starting appearing. Sansa's usually smooth skin would wrinkle ever so slightly as she prepared to hold back the ensuing tears. Arya watched as her sister turned to their father and cried, "It's mostly my fault, it is, and when it's not he's just frustrated because he's having a hard time seeing the ball and he's not getting any good pitches to hit."

"If down-the-middle fastballs are good enough to hit," Arya commented dryly, "maybe he should ask if they can cart a tee out to the plate for him."

Ned shot her a look that told her she was not helping the situation in the slightest before turning his attention back to Sansa. "What exactly is happening that _is _your fault?"

"Forgetting to clean up our room in the apartment or remind him about things or just other stupid stuff that I should remember," Sansa mumbled. "It's my fault, he's really busy and hard-working and sometimes I just get in the way."

She buried her head in her hands for a moment, during which Ned shot Arya an incredulous look. Arya shrugged and gestured violently in her sister's direction, indicating her flabbergasted and limited understanding of her sister's destined-to-be matrimonial relationship.

"Sansa," her father began carefully, "he has no right to yell at you in any case. Why haven't you told me about—"

"Because it's not important," Sansa cut him off, emerging from her hideout and visibly swallowing her silent sobs. When he made to press his point, she quickly added, "It's really not. We're just having a rough go of it at the moment. When things get better with his play he'll change. Once we're married, it will all be better."

Arya made a rather rude noise to show her sister that she didn't believe that in the slightest, and their father was clearly just as unconvinced. This was the Sansa he had wound up raising, though, the Sansa Arya had infuriatingly grown up with. _Once she gets an image in her mind, you could tear it in two, flip it upside-down and duct-tape in back together and she'd still think nothing was wrong._

The waiter returned at that precise moment and asked them for their orders, which offered a brief lull. When he was gone, Sansa was back to sitting pristinely and the moment had passed. Arya was in no mood to restart it, and evidently nor was Ned, so they both let the matter drop.

"How's school going?" their father asked her, and she groaned involuntarily.

"Excruciating," she said. "I haven't even been procrastinating like usual. It's just horrendous how much is piling up around me. I can't wait for term to end."

"You going to make it?" her father jested with a grin and she groaned again, only half-jokingly. "Everything else okay? Job? Boyfriend?"

"Job's fine," Arya replied, picturing her perpetually-rewarding career of stacking shelves twelve hours a week in the local grocery store. She had no need for the money, of course, being a Stark and everything, but it was another one of her attempts to escape her family's influence and she endured the grueling hours of boredom with pride. "Boyfriend's nonexistent."

Ned grunted. Or chuckled. Perhaps halfway in between the two. "Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, if you're too busy with school and work and are approaching it wisely... on the other, if it's because you just prefer, what is it called, 'hooking up'?"

"I haven't hooked up with anyone since New Year's," Arya deadpanned, earning the glare of death she had desired. As she bit her lip to prevent herself from smiling, she held up crossed fingers. "Scout's honor. How about the Spears, Dad? They going to challenge this year?"

Clearly caught between deciding whether or not her hooking up comment was serious and a complex discussion about baseball, her father was helpless but to choose baseball, as he always did, and launched gleefully into a tirade about how the team from Dorne still had to prove themselves over their youth before he would put much stock in their chances. One thing led to another and by the time their food arrived they were having a clandestine discussion about the finer points of the Direwolves' lineup that Ned, as both the team's owner and general manager, had tried to fine tune the past offseason. Sansa nibbled at her salad rather reclusively, although even she couldn't resist offering a few pointers here and there—although much more a girl than Arya, even she had inherited the Stark gene for the love of baseball.

"How's my favorite catcher in the league?" Arya eventually asked, referring to the Direwolves' young all-star.

Instead of bristling with pride, as Ned Stark always did, the smile suddenly fell from his face, although he tried to hide by taking a heavy bite from his club sandwich. When he had chewed and swallowed, his face was blank, and even Sansa's raised eyebrows showed that she had noticed his stalling.

"Robb's fine," Ned replied. "He sends his love. Wanted to come, of course, but Luwen wanted them to get some rest after this morning's flight."

Never one to beat around the bush, Arya pushed what she wanted to know. "What's up with Robb?"

"Nothing."

If Arya didn't possess a death glare equally as fearsome as her father's, the conversation may have ended there. Sansa certainly never liked to push the discussion in untoward directions. Nevertheless, the ferocity in Arya's eyes made Ned Stark sigh, wipe his mouth with his napkin, and fold his hands in his lap before beginning again.

"He broke everything off with Roslin Frey," Ned said. Across the table, Sansa's jaw dropped. Arya felt her eyes widen. Ned noticed them both and shook his head. "There's more. He thinks he got a girl named Westerling pregnant, and he's all over her. Your mother is furious."

"What _happened_?" Sansa cried quietly, one hand covering her mouth. Arya rolled her eyes at the dramatized action.

Their father shrugged. "He was drunk one night. Got into bed with a girl. It's just how it goes. I think he's handling the part with the girl quite well, actually, myself, but even I'm a little upset he just dropped things with Roslin so quickly. Especially when old Walder's been a friend of your grandfather for so long. I think she deserved more than to just be pitched out in a day or two like it happened."

Arya sighed and grunted in the same space of a moment. "What's Robb going to do?"

Ned scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Marry her, he says. The Westerling girl, I mean. Her name's Jeyne, and apparently he's smitten. Her family's not too happy, either, they're from the west, out by Lannisport."

"Lion fans," Arya said in disgust, and her father shrugged, unable to hold back a grin.

"Will you shut up about baseball for a moment?" Sansa abruptly spat across the table at her sister. "We're talking about our brother and the rest of his life here! Just forget about that stupid game long enough to realize that."

"You know what?" Arya retorted, the venom she'd conjured during their previous discussion returning instantly. "Baseball's my life, and it's our family's legacy! Sorry you could never appreciate that right like me, but you've always been too obsessed with boys and money and shit. You're just like Mother, talking all this shit about it and going around and cheering along with the rest of us and marrying a player!"

"And what's wrong about being like Mother?" Sansa growled in an undertone that was more like the wolf all Starks had inside of them. "Tell me what's wrong with that! Why do you hate her so much? All your life she's tried to fix your shit when you fuck up! She just loves you! Appreciate that!"

"All right, that's enough," their father barked, and both daughters immediately fell silent. "You two really have to grow up around each other. I can't believe—"

"E-excuse me?"

Ned stopped midsentence, and all three of them turned to the young boy who had sidled up to their table, nervously clutching a small square of cardboard in his trembling hands and looking up at their father with big eyes. Arya watched as Ned's demeanor changed in the space of a second, from stern and commanding father to kind-hearted gentleman.

"Hey there," he said kindly to the boy. "What can I do for you?"

"S-sir, a-are you Ned S-Stark?" the child replied meekly. He was wearing a blank baseball cap, a shirt that displayed a dog running with a baseball in its mouth, and little athletic shorts. Arya usually detested children, but even she couldn't help but smile at the courage the kid was summoning to walk up to her father. When Ned nodded, he held out the piece of cardboard. "C-could you autograph this for me? I've watched all your games. You're the best pitcher ever. You're my favorite player ever."

Ned grinned at the child and gently took the square, which Arya finally recognized as a weathered baseball card of her father. Her father fished a pen from his pocket as he asked the boy what his name was and then wrote a short note on the card before signing with a flourish. He handed the card back to the boy with a grin and ruffled the boy's hair. The kid thanked him enthusiastically and then turned and rushed back to his parents, who watched amusedly from a nearby booth. The two fathers made eye contact and seemed to have a silent conversation before they both returned to their respected conversations.

Sansa eyed the crowd around them, but thankfully no one else had noticed that a baseball great was eating among them. "That was cute. I just wish that didn't happen so often."

"It doesn't happen _that_ often," Arya replied, mostly for the sake of disagreeing with Sansa. Honestly, it happened a decent amount; at least when it was children that came up, they were sometimes fun to watch and meet. When they were chubby, middle-aged men near tears as they met the great Ned Stark, it got very awkward very fast.

"Bran and Rickon send their love," Ned commented quickly, to change the subject away from another argument.

It worked; Arya turned towards her father. "How is Bran?"

"The same. Brave on the outside, coping on the inside, taking it better than anyone else would. Your mother still fusses over him relentlessly, and he gets angry at her sometimes. Rickon wants to play, and she's mad about that, too."

Arya sighed. "Dad, it was a _freak_ accident. Mom knows that, and Robb still plays and everything. We're Starks. It's in our blood to play baseball."

"Your mother wasn't always a Stark," her father said wryly, "and every time she sees Bran in his wheelchair she hates it a little bit more."

"It's not fair. She knows how much you and Robb love the game. She knows how much _I_ love the game. Even Bran still goes to every game he can. It's what brings out family together, and she can't keep Rickon away from that if he wants to be a part of it."

Ned paused a long moment and when he finally opened his mouth to reply, a chiming suddenly sounded from his pocket. Grimacing in disgust, he fished for a moment before pulling out his cell phone and glancing at the screen. With a deep sigh and another grimace, he looked apologetically at Arya and Sansa. "Sorry, girls, I have to take this. I'll be right back."

Her father stood and began to weave his way through the crowd, answering the call as he went. Arya stared after him to avoid the icy awkwardness that descended around the table as it was only her and Sansa who remained.

She let the moment drag itself out for a few long moments and then cleared her throat, convinced she would regret speaking later. "I'm sorry about what I said about Joffrey. I just get really upset because you're my sister and he treats you like shit. I didn't mean to call you weak or anything."

"But you did." Sansa's voice wasn't accusing, anymore. Simply factual.

"I—" Her anger was quickly rising back to the surface, and she breathed deeply in order to speak civilly. "Sansa, he's bad for you. Please, please just take a step back and see that."

"What do you know about him? You've never even tried to know him better."

"I know enough about him." Arya crossed her arms and faced down her sister. "I've seen him hit, I've seen him sweet-talk Mom, and I've seen him yell at you. That's all I need to know."

"That's all you need to know," Sansa repeated sarcastically. "You're just like Jon, thinking you know everything about everything, too damn stubborn to listen to anyone trying to help you."

Arya felt a pang in her chest as Sansa mentioned their half-brother. It had been almost a year since she had last seen Jon, and she missed him terribly. He understood her better than any of her other siblings, even more than Robb.

She shook her head to shake off her reverie and replied, "I _am _trying to help you. Maybe you can't see it, but if you go through this marriage you're resigning yourself to a life of getting yelled at, a life of abuse."

"And what do you know?" Sansa said. "What do you know really know about relationships? You've never even had a real one."

"Because I've never _wanted _one."

Perhaps that wasn't the most honest thing Arya had never said; true, she had never been in a true relationship with a boy. Though her earlier jibe had been just that—a jibe—most of her boy experience came from making out in the back corners of parties with lesser-known jocks. It wasn't the fact that she didn't like someone enough to pursue a relationship, or that she wasn't willing to commit; more like, she found that men much preferred the blind beauty someone like Sansa represented rather than the spunky, feisty little thing she was. She'd spent her entire high school life being compared to her sister, in looks and grades alike, and where every boy in their school had been just a little in love with Sansa during her time there almost nobody noticed Arya that way.

Sansa now rubbed her eyes with her hands. "Look, I love Joffrey, okay? For his faults, too. Don't worry about my life, worry about your own. You were just complaining about how much schoolwork was piling up. You worry about your studies and your own love life and I'll focus on mine."

Arya heard the word "nonexistent" silently inserted somewhere in her sister's latter sentence, but decided to let the matter drop.

At that precise moment, Ned Stark came bustling back through the tables. His face was pale and his expression shocked; something was clearly wrong. When he reached them he rested his hands on the back of his chair and hung his head. "I'm very sorry, girls. Something serious has come up. I have to go."

"Is everything all right?" Sansa asked.

The two daughters rose and Ned hugged them each in-turn without answering the question. "I'll call you both soon. Stay safe. Do well in school. Be careful about boys. Sansa—" He eyed his eldest daughter carefully as he dropped a trio of twenty-dollar bills on the table. "—we may be having a discussion about that."

"Bye, Dad," Arya called as their father disappeared into the throng of people and vanished from the sports bar.

"Great," Sansa said as she plopped back into her chair. "Thanks a lot for that toss under the bus. Him and Mom will probably grill me about Joffrey, now."

"Sorry," Arya said, and it wasn't even genuine to her own ears. "It's just for your own good, though. They would be worried, too, if they saw what I saw."

"Whatever."

Arya let the matter drop, and pulled her cell phone from her pocket to check the time. All the things she had to do beckoned to her, and she groaned with the reminder. A few bites of her burger were left, but she found that her appetite had completely abandoned her. The prospect of a long and meaningful conversation with her sister did not attract her, and despite her misgivings about homework she cleared her throat and announced that it was probably time for her to be going, too.

Sansa glanced at her with weary eyes. "Do you need anything? Anything I can do?"

"Sansa Stark offering me help? What's happened to the world?"

"We're sisters," Sansa stated blankly. "And I'm trying to salvage something from this disaster of a lunch. So if you need anything from me in the next few weeks, before term ends and you go back to Winterfell, just let me know."

Arya, despite herself, was oddly touched by this offer from Sansa. "Thanks. Is there anything I can do for you?" Sansa opened her mouth, then hesitated, and Arya bit her lip to hold back a sigh. Never _return the offer, damn it, you _never _return the offer. What the hell were you thinking? _"What is it?"

"Nothing serious," Sansa replied meekly. "Just, my car is in the shop until tomorrow. My suspension busted and it's getting replaced, and I have an engagement tomorrow so that I can't pick it up on time. Could you... maybe..."

"Pick it up for you?" Arya finished exasperatedly. "What engagement do you have?"

Sansa dropped her eyes and shrugged. "Just some stuff that's been in the calendar for a while. Everything boring but necessary. Could you do it? I would really appreciate it, Arya."

_More stuff to do. _She rubbed at her temples and shrugged, herself. Holding out her hand for the keys, she groaned, "Yeah, I guess I can do that."

"Thank you so much!" Sansa said, spending a long moment removing the key from a rather jingly and dense keychain. "It's in Tobho Mott's car shop. Do you know it?"

Arya shook her head. "I'll just... I'll find it. Should I just take it back to your place and take your parking spot?"

"Yes, that would be great! And I'll pay for your bus fare to get back to the dorms. Thanks, Arya, this really means a lot to me."

"Well..." She didn't know what else to say, so she finally just settled on the obvious. "We're sisters, aren't we?"

She endured an awkward hug before Sansa left, weaving her own way through the crowd. After paying the bill with the money their father had left behind, she walked back out into the busy King's Landing street, already dreading the paper, speech, and exam practice that were crying her name.

It took only a moment of waiting at the bus stop for her resolve to completely crumble. _Okay, fuck that_.

Before her more rational sense of mind could change her decision again, she took off, away from the bus stop and the confinement of homework and annoying roommates and off into the streets, where, mingling with the crowd, she could be more free as another day of tiring life passed her by. She knew she would regret it later, when she was forced to return and complete the work she was shirking, but for now nothing sounded better than losing herself for a few hours in the daily bustle.

She walked for over an hour, mingling amongst the folk and walking a great number of blocks, further into industrial King's Landing, where the buildings became less sturdy and clean. In the background, as she glanced over her shoulder, she could see the Red Keep rising high above its surrounding buildings, the giant capitol overlooking its meager understudies. She'd always thought it ugly, but had always liked the fact that the Monarchs' stadium was immediately next to it in the very middle of downtown and one could watch a full game unhindered from a fourth floor window.

As she walked, she slowly became aware of the calls of a small crowd and the occasional slap of wood on leather. A most familiar sound; a sound she'd lived her entire life loving. Glancing up at a number of cranes sticking up from behind a few apartment buildings, she followed the sounds around the complexes to a chain link fence twice as tall as she was.

On the other side of it, near the bases of the cranes and next to a few tall piles of dirt, about ten men were fanned out about a wide flat area between buildings. Around ten others were leaning against the edge of another building, while the ten that were fanned out all wore the familiar, grimy work gear of a construction crew. On the fanned out ones were baseball mitts, and at the front of them a man stood with a bat, waiting for the pitch.

Arya grinned in appreciation and leaned against the fence as it was delivered, and she watched the stout man at the plate made solid contact with a resounding crack. The men in the field cried out and two of the outfielders tore after it as the ball soared a hundred feet in the air and landed somewhere amid the piles of dirt. A runner who had been on first, seemingly a ratty shirt or some other dirty piece of clothing, took off around the bases, rounding second even as the fielders hastened to retrieve the ball.

This was the feeling Arya enjoyed most in life: the split-second decisions that decided the game. From the outfield, one of the men seized the ball from the pile of dirt and heaved it back to the infield, just as the runner was rounding third. The second baseman caught the throw and gunned it to the plate, which appeared to be the lid of a trash can. The catcher, having thrown away the welding mask that apparently approximated a catcher's mask, caught the ball when the runner was still three strides away. Undaunted, the runner lowered his shoulder and railroaded the catcher, and both men went flying at least ten feet from their starting position.

The players all watched as the dust settled, and, swearing loud enough so Arya could hear him from where she stood a few hundred feet away, pulled the ball from inside of his mitt and held it up for the teams to see. The fielders cheered, the hitting team groaned, and one team rushed in to hit while the other team rushed out to pitch.

_A much more productive way to spend my afternoon rather than studying_, Arya decided as she leaned herself against the fence. She'd never been down to this part of the city before, but she found it incredible that these workers were apparently spending what remained of their lunch break playing ball with a makeshift field.

The runner who had been gunned down to the plate jogged out to the area that functioned as a mound after a minute, rubbing his shoulder where he'd lowered it on the catcher. He swung his arm around in a windmill to loosen it for a moment and then immediately leaned over to get the sign from his catcher, neglecting to throw a warm-up pitch. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered but slender through what considerable muscle Arya could see. He came set with a poise she wouldn't have expected from someone so large.

His leg came up, he strode forward. Arya blinked, and suddenly the ball was in the catcher's glove.

It took her a moment to realize that the pitch had already been thrown, and by that time that catcher had already thrown the ball back to the pitcher. _Holy crap._

Half-convinced she had been dreaming the first pitch, she gripped the fence so hard her fingers hurt as she leaned closer, trying to take in every detail of the pitcher and his motion. The batter hadn't moved on the first pitch, which the catcher had apparently caught directly down the middle of the plate. Arya steeled herself as the pitcher's leg came up a second time, forcing every muscle in her face to keep her eyes open so she could confirm what she thought she had seen.

The ball left the pitcher's hand, and it flew straight and true. It was in the catcher's mitt before the batter even started to swing.

Her jaw dropped. _Who _is_ that?_

She tried to look at the man's face as he caught the return throw and paced himself back to the rubber, wiping sweat from his brow as he went. Shaggy black hair got in the way of her gaze so that she couldn't make out his features, his head down as he turned back to the plate. If he was any kind of prospect in the city, she would know him; she had the top 100 names in the country memorized, and someone packing this kind of heat would definitely be in the top 100. Nevertheless, his body was unfamiliar, his throwing motion even more so. She continued to try and place him unsuccessfully as he reeled back and delivered strike three.

The fielders reacted as if the strikeout was nothing new, and not even the batter seemed that put out as he walked back to where his team leaned against the buildings. The pitcher watched quietly as the infield threw it around the horn and then retrieved it without comment.

Arya watched in disbelief, wishing to the gods she had her speed gun on her, as he mowed down the next hitter in the same fashion, three fastballs down the pipe. With two outs, strike one was delivered looking to the third hitter, and then a blind swing at nothing was rewarded with a foul tip into the catcher's mitt that actually earned cheers from the batting team's lounging area. She leaned into the fence, tensely anticipating the fireball that had disposed of the previous two hitters.

The pitcher reeled back and released. Halfway to the plate, the bottom of the pitch dropped out. The catcher caught it at the batter's knees as he swung near his face.

Arya's jaw tried very hard to dig itself into the pavement below her.

_What the..._ She stared at the pitcher's back as he calmly walked back towards the designated dugout area nonchalantly. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen as good of a slider as he had just thrown, on top of the fastball that only one man had been able to touch by sheer luck. _Who is this guy?_

Abruptly, in the distance, a high whistle sounded, and all of the players groaned. As a group, they began to pick up the equipment that had been serving as their gears and bases and then began to migrate back towards the cranes; all except for her mystery pitcher, who hung back and accepted a few claps on the back and handshakes. Now that she was looking, she could see that he was dressed differently, though no less dirty. His clothes were covered in what looked like oil, his sleeveless arms corded with muscle and smeared with dirt. She was absolutely convinced that she had never seen him before, but there was _no way _someone with as nasty pitches as his could have skirted her radar in a city bursting with major league scouts.

_Maybe he's not that good_, she told herself, trying to rationalize it. _Maybe he's really not throwing that fast, it just looks like it because it's out here in the streets_.

As if summoned to her thoughts, the pitcher's head suddenly swung in her direction as his teammates and opponents went back to their apparatuses. She jumped in surprise as his eyes locked onto her where she was skulking behind the fence. Over two hundred feet of distance, she was seized with the inexplicable notion that his eyes were as blue as the ocean.

She turned away, horribly embarrassed, and began to walk away quickly, imagining what he must be thinking upon finding a nineteen-year-old girl spying upon him from behind a fence. She strode fast, eager to be out of his line of sight before her internal humiliation could get worse. As she was about to round the corner, however, and vanish back around the block, her curiosity returned, and she stopped to look back after him one last time.

Too late; he had disappeared, leaving the lot vacant as the cranes slowly began to whine back into motion. All that remained of him was the imprint on her memory of the crack of the ball slamming into the catcher's mitt, the batter's resigned sigh as he realized he was out, the arc of the breaking ball as it vanished into thin air.

Later that night, as her roommate snored interminably across from her, she found that she couldn't sleep. She pulled her laptop up in the dark and scanned through the top 100 prospects of the country, both college and high school, and then stalked through city rosters when he didn't turn up. She never found him, not a description or a picture or a statistic that matched what she had seen that day. The moon was bright and as mysterious as she stared out up at it and contemplated.

_Who are you?_


	3. Chapter 2

**2**

Gendry's arm ached as he woke up. He was used to it; it usually did. That didn't prevent him from swearing as he lifted it gingerly with the rest of his body and shook it viciously until the pain disappeared. Perhaps not the most appropriate of medical techniques, but the flaming agony in his elbow dulled to an annoying throb, and at least he could deal with the throb.

_Another day_.

He climbed out of his bed and entered the bedroom of his two-room apartment. The image in his mirror was the same as always and unbecoming. He figured he should get a haircut soon, but he couldn't afford it and always ended up botching it when he did it himself. A shave was in order, as well, but who was he trying to impress? Might as well just shower and let bygones be bygones, he supposed. He was due at work in a half hour, and it wasn't like improving his appearance—or attempting to do so—would improve his mood.

Breakfast was toast. Dry. The bread was expired, nearly moldy, and staler than a desert in Hell, but he ate it anyway, gulping down three glasses of tap water to wash away the horrible taste. He checked his pockets and wallet and was relieved to find he had at least fifteen dollars on him, which would get him an acceptable, if not lavish, lunch.

His apartment complex was nearly as small as his apartment, with rent he could hardly manage on a good week. Gendry managed to sneak out without waking his murderous landlord and unchained his bike from the railing outside. It was a ten-minute ride to work—it would be three if he owned a car, but that was about two thousand dollars past his life's savings.

_Is it ironic_, he wondered in his head, as he hopped on the bike and started to peddle down the scarred, bleak street of residences, _that I work on cars all day but can't afford my own... or is just sad?_

He couldn't answer that, not while riding down the streets as he dove farther into King's Landing, from the outskirts to the industrial sector. Not while pulling up into Tobho Mott's Car Shop and dumping his bicycle on the scrap pile that no one ever touched. Not while skirting through the back door, punching in his time slot and stalking into the main shop. Not while glancing at the crude roster report Mott drew up every evening and morning detailing what had to be done.

Smelling blood, Mott slid out from under a nearby car and eyed his only employee. "You're late."

Gendry glanced at the crude clock on the wall and noticed that he was, in fact, seven minutes early. Keeping his grumblings to himself, aloud he said, "Sorry, boss. Won't happen again."

"You've got spark plugs to replace," Mott said, jerking one of his feet towards a nice black truck sitting in a corner of the shop as he slid back to his work. His muffled voice added, with a jerk of the other foot in the opposite direction, "And _two _catalytic converters to do over there."

"On it, boss," Gendry said dully, and set off to do his work.

So went his day. So went every day for him, actually. Unfortunately for him, it was Friday, good and bad. Good because it meant he had two days in which to not be exposed to Mott's constant criticism despite his respectable experience, two days in which to travel downtown and hopefully play ball in a more challenging setting than the construction site he usually attended on his lunch break. With any luck and a decent amount of risk, he may even have been able to make some money betting on the outcomes. He'd never gone downtown before; most of the time he preferred to play it safe and quiet. This week, though, he figured he might as well test his luck.

Friday was bad because the construction site moved southside of the city on Fridays, meaning his lunch break would be woefully devoid of baseball today and there was no hope of a game tonight. He hated nights where he had nothing to do. It meant he would probably do something stupid like pick up a girl.

Which would result in money that he didn't have being spent. By him.

The lack of baseball meant his day dragged, despite the quickness of his work. His ability to operate mindlessly was convenient in a number of ways. For one, it didn't have the cruel effects that schoolwork had always had on him when he was younger, making him stumble over situations and facts because he couldn't concentrate. For another, he could let his mind wander anywhere it wanted without having to return unless something seriously complex was screwed up with the car.

Most days, Gendry's mind either wandered towards baseball or girls. Mostly baseball, because that was his life, and because his luck with girls was notoriously poor. On Fridays, however, with his days dragging and his future looking dismal, bleak, and unyielding, he had no desire for his mind to wander at all. There was nothing but work, work, work.

After three centuries of replacing transmissions and swearing at spark plugs, Mott kicked his foot from where he was under an engine to get his attention. "Waters, I gotta head to a doctor's appointment. It's almost four. Can you wait after 'til six for me? I'll pay you overtime and everything."

Working an extra two hours wasn't exactly Gendry's idea of how to spend his Friday night, but then again, it wasn't like he had any better plans. "Sure. I'll just close up when I leave at six, then."

"Thanks, boy," Mott said, the tap on the foot light and friendly this time as he stalked off through his shop. Gendry lied on his back for a few minutes, listening to his boss peddle around in the back room. Only after he heard the back door shut and lock behind Mott did he reach up and continue his fiddling.

He didn't mind Mott. Most of the time. He was usually a fair boss, if grumpy and hard-to-please. Gendry had worked for him for nearly five years, and he still put up with the bull-headed adult he had turned into. Gendry couldn't quite say he was grateful of his boss, but at least they could usually fix cars within twenty feet of one another for eight hours a day without ripping each others' throats out. Which was more than he could say for the garage where he'd worked in high school. _What was that kid's name? Lemmy? Lommy?_

The car he was working on was done by four-thirty, and he finished up the suspension on a fancy yellow sports vehicle by five-thirty. He was so bored by six that he was reciting Jaime Lannister's hit totals per season and was relieved when the clock in the pack chimed the closing time alarm he so rarely stuck around for.

The only thing that could have deadened his mood was the chiming of the door at the opposite end of the shop, precisely as he finished putting his and Mott's tools away.

Gendry leaned himself against the counter and sighed. After considering toughing his boredom out through one more customer, he cleared his throat and announced, "Sorry. We're closed. You'll have to come back on Monday."

"I'm not here for a fix," a woman's voice replied. "I'm here to pick up a car. It was supposed to be done by today."

"After hours," Gendry answered. "And I'm not the owner. Technically, I'm not allowed to check out customers without him being here. Sorry."

There was a scoff near the door. "Come on. I'm right here, I just want to pay, take my car, and leave."

Gendry scratched the back of his neck, stretching his taxed back muscles as he did so. _All I want to do is go chuck a baseball_. He hadn't lied; Mott didn't trust anyone with his inventory, and the last time Gendry had let a soccer mom check her minivan out while Mott was on lunch break he'd nearly been docked a week's pay plus having to clean and sweep the shop.

"Look," he said, turning around. "I'd love to—"

He stopped. He had expected to find a sixteen-year-old girl chewing bubble gum and texting impulsively; that was the read he had made on the voice to his back. What he had not expected was to find a girl who may have stood up to his shoulder on her tiptoes who appeared ready to punch him in the face, not very much but obviously older than sixteen. She was wearing shorts and a blank black t-shirt, her scraggly brown hair falling messily to her shoulders. Startling grey eyes glared at him as he sized her up, and were he any smaller than he actually was he may have been genuinely taken aback by this little ball of fire.

The surprise for him came when she started, as well, as soon as he turned to face her. She tried to cover her shock quickly, but wasn't able to, and in the space of the moment, Gendry was struck by the feeling that he'd seen her before, and quite recently.

Despite her regained composure, he recovered first. "Sorry, I'd like to help, but I don't want to lose this job. I really need it." Perhaps slightly overdramatized—he would probably have to burn half the shop to the ground before Mott fired him—but he hadn't lied one bit about needing the job.

"Your boss won't care," the girl replied after a moment. "The car's supposed to be done and paid for anyway. I'm just supposed to pick it up. It's my sister's. I took a taxi to get here, I have no ride back to the city and no money to pay for another cab."

Gendry opened his mouth to insist he leave and found the apology die on his lips. He looked the girl up and down. She didn't appear to be much; a lot of skin and bone, mostly. There was a feral look in her eye, though, that he recognized all too well... he saw it every time he looked in the mirror, as well. From the clothes she wore and the authority and conviction with which she spoke, she didn't seem to be from a background that was anything like his. He'd developed an early gauge for people in the streets and the hardships they'd endured, and she wasn't landing herself very high on the list. Nevertheless, the look he saw in her suggested that she had a war inside of her too against what she was. Or who she was. It was easy for Gendry to admit that no one knew what that felt like more than he did. He couldn't help but sympathize with her.

The clock over his shoulder read five minutes past six now. If Mott had asked Gendry to close up, he would definitely not return that night, and probably not show up again until Monday morning, unless he decided to open a special shift Sunday afternoon. If he checked the girl's car out and mimicked Mott's handwriting, he might just not notice at all.

"What are you screwing your face up like that for?" the girl suddenly asked, startling him.

"What?"

She threw a hand out towards his face. "Your brow's all crinkled and you're pursing your lips. It looks like your head's about to explode."

Gendry frowned at her. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

"Thinking," the girl repeated, and he crossed her arms as she apparently tried her best not to laugh. "If it's that difficult for you, you'd best go get a pack of ice beforehand. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

He tossed his hammer down on the counter and pointed towards the door she'd entered a few moments before, already moving angrily towards the back. "There's the door. We open at seven o'clock on Monday morning. Hopefully you can find an alternative means of transport back to wherever the hell you came from."

"I'm sorry!" the girl blurted after him. He heard her rush around and reenter his field of vision, a more sober expression on her face. "I'm sorry. Really. Please, I really need to get the car. My sister is expecting it back by today."

"Sorry, no can do," Gendry announced, knocking a knuckle against his head. "Can't think about it right now or I'll hurt myself. Ask me next week."

It was the girl's turn to scowl. The expression looked suspiciously familiar to her face. "I already said I'm sorry, you don't have to be so stupid about it."

Gendry couldn't help but chuckle. "Do you think that saying that is helping your chances of changing my mind?"

"Well, if you weren't being such a bull-headed idiot about it—"

"I'm intrigued. You actually think this is helping you."

"Shut up, stupid!"

"Does this usually work on people for you?"

He couldn't help but smile to himself as the girl took a step forward and raised her arms as if to physically shove him backwards. At the last moment, she seemed to restrain herself, and curled her fists before finally dropping them to her sides. Gendry waited patiently for her to take a step backwards and shuffle between her feet as she stared at him with furious eyes. She was amusing, at least as much as she was a pain. Gendry decided it was worth staying an extra five minutes in the shop just to witness the spectacle of this little creature get wound up.

She took a deep breath, evidently to calm herself, but it came out mostly as a growl or groan of irritation. Nevertheless, she said, "I'm sorry. I'm having a bad day and a worse week."

"Are you?" Gendry replied. "Even so, what makes you think walking into an establishment and cursing out the only person there to help you will get you what you want?"

"Look." She raised her face, and her eyes met his. Gendry was stuck with an image of storm clouds brewing behind her sparking grey eyes. "I just want the car."

"I'm not supposed to let you take it," Gendry told her.

"Just this one time? It's not even like it's not ready or anything. Besides, if you don't let me take it, my sister will probably get charged for leaving it in the garage the whole weekend."

"That's probably the point," he said, grinning at her. When she glared, he shrugged again. "My boss' rules, not mine. I'd just as soon let you take it."

"I'll pay you twenty dollars," she offered, already fumbling in her pocket.

He held up his hand to stop her movement and shook his head. "No, I won't take that."

"You just said you needed all the money you could get," she protested, pulling a wad of crinkled bills from her shorts and holding out her hand to him. Before he could stop himself, he caught himself reaching for the money on the reflex of seeing green.

Just in time, he realized what he was doing and snatched his hand back. "No, I can't. That's not who I am." The girl's eyes darkened again, though more with upset this time than any anger in his direction. He was so startled to find her go from furious to crestfallen so quickly that he actually said, "Hey…"

She waited for him to continue, and cocked her head to the side when he stopped. "What?"

"Which one is it?" he asked, not quite believing what he was saying.

Her eyes brightened, and he decided it was a much more becoming look to her face than the scowl it had replaced, after all. "The yellow one. The one with the broken suspension."

Gendry glanced over his shoulder at the car in question, one he himself had finished with only a half hour earlier. He had already given in, he knew, a thought which didn't exactly please him; he was used to being immovable, whether facing little girl, fat old man, or screaming idiot.

"All right," he said grudgingly. "Just let me get the clipboard, so you can sign out. Then you can take it."

She didn't even thank him as he stalked into the back room and retrieved the dirty clipboard Mott kept his clients' sign-ins and sign-outs on. By the time he had returned to the shop she was already leaning against the yellow car with her arms crossed, staring at him funnily as he weaved his way through the mess and mass of car parts towards her.

"Sign here," he said, feeling unusually like he'd been defeated. He shoved the clipboard and pen into her hands and stepped back. He felt his muscles clench as he crossed his arms, and noticed with discomfort that she was still watching him. "What?"

The girl didn't jump, but she clearly returned from a deep thought of something. She scrawled an unintelligible mess on the line and shoved the board back into his hands with just as much venom. "Nothing. Thanks."

He shook his head at her. _I want to play baseball_, he whined in his head as she opened the doors to the car. Something white felt out of the door and started to roll away, but the girl didn't seem to notice.

"Hang on," he called to her as he traipsed after it a few paces. He hadn't seen what it was, but had seen where it had rolled, right into a mass of barrels that had been empty for years. He leaned against the first barrel and stooped over to reach into between them until his fingers closed on a familiarly-shaped sphere. It was so ironic he had to laugh aloud.

He tossed the baseball up in his hands as he pulled it out from between the barrels and walked back to the yellow car. It was the cleanest one he had ever seen, almost perfectly white, and it made him feel guilty just touching it. He offered it to the girl as he stepped back up to the door, where she had no leg inside of the vehicle already.

Her face turned surprised as she saw what he was holding, and then immediately softened as she reached for it. "Well, what d'you know? Sansa's a Stark, after all…"

Gendry couldn't explain it. As her fingers touched the ball he was holding, his eyes were drawn to hers and—whether it was the baseball or just the eye contact—he made the connection he'd been missing. Abruptly, it felt as though the storm behind her eyes had hit him with a lightning bolt.

"You're the one who was skulking behind the fence yesterday."

She started, as if she hadn't expected him to remember, and clearly realized she had given herself away. Quickly, she wrenched the baseball out of his hands and turned away. "I wasn't skulking."

"What do you call it, then?" Gendry demanded lightly, stepping forward to catch the door in his hand before she could slam it. The garage door was closed, so she couldn't escape prematurely, but he didn't want her getting any avenue to slip out of the discussion.

He remembered the event; it had been only yesterday. Tom, Anguy, and Lem had just clapped him on the back and started following the crowd back to their construction work when he had been seized abruptly by the notion that he was being watched, and turning just in time to catch the slim, lithe figure behind the fence watching him. Whoever she was slunk away almost immediately, clearly having realized she had just been made. Gendry had enough experience in the streets to realize that when such things happened you left before whoever it was had a chance to get closer, but he had also gotten a strange feeling that whoever she was—the weird watcher from beyond the fence—was someone he actually wouldn't have minded running into. Nevertheless, he had decided in a split second his gut feelings weren't to be trusted and had slipped back to Mott's before his boss could start screaming at him.

Now, as the girl whipped back around when he grabbed hold of her door, he was renewed with the strange feeling of association that had struck him the day before. Even if she was stabbing him a million times a second with fake needles, even though it was a strange coincidence for her to pop up in two odd places on two consecutive days.

"Let go," she snarled.

"Of course, m'lady," he said sarcastically, not budging in the slightest but to drop an exaggerated bow. "What were you doing there, yesterday? Are you following me?"

"No!" she snapped. "I was just walking around and I noticed a game going on and decided to watch for a bit."

"Uh-huh," Gendry said.

"It's the truth."

"Is it?"

"Fine. Don't believe me. Just let go of the fucking door so I can get out of here."

_She's as bloody stubborn as me_, he thought, raising his chin only to find her obstinately matching his level with venom. _How can someone so small be such a giant pain in my ass?_

He sighed, and released the door. "Fine, m'lady."

"Don't call me that!" she growled. She didn't climb into the car as he turned to leave, and he rubbed at his eyes tiredly.

"Seven hells, you are impossible," he groaned. He shook his head at her. "You want me to give you the car, you laugh at me, I give you the car, you yell at me, I hold open your door, you threaten me, I'm _letting you leave_, and you're still making a fuss."

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment before fixing them upon him anew. She made no further move to climb into the car. "I'm sorry. Who are you?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Quite a turnaround," he commented dryly, nevertheless wiping his grease-covered hand on his jeans before offering it to her. "Gendry Waters."

She took his hand without comment or disgust, something that actually made him crack a grin; he didn't know many other girls who would be willing to do so. Then again, he didn't know many girls, period. Her handshake was firmer than he'd expected and utterly uncompromising, as was the pride in her voice. "Arya Stark."

"Pleasure to meet you," he said, half-seriously. He leaned against her car, scrutinizing her closer. She sounded like she was older than high school, no matter how young she appeared or acted. Definitely not twenty, but more feisty than a stoned chihuahua. "Spy on people often?"

The stormy look was back. "I _wasn't_ spying on you. I told you, I was just walking by and I happened to hear a baseball getting hit. When I investigated I decided to watch for a bit, that's all. You don't have to get all high and mighty about it."

"Who's getting high and mighty?"

"You are, stupid."

"That's the best insult you can come up with?" he replied, raising the other eyebrow at her so they were both finally raised. He raised his chin to challenge her. "So what did you stay back for? I know you were glaring at me at least a minute after everyone else left."

Arya Stark shrugged at him, raising and lowering one small shoulder without removing her eyes from him. "I was wondering who you were. You throw a nice fastball. I've never seen you play before, and you throw harder than anyone I've seen who wasn't professional."

_No need to make fun of me_, he thought wryly. He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I don't know about that. I'm fast for the streets, sure, but it's just the streets. Know something about baseball, do you?"

"Only everything," she said, rolling her eyes as if it should have been obvious to him. "My dad and brothers..." She paused, peering up at him through narrow eyes as if suddenly seeing him differently. The inspection made him self-conscious and uncomfortable and he was relieved when she sat down on the edge of the driver's seat, still sticking out of the car and looking at him. "Baseball's big in my family. The same in yours?"

He bristled. _My family._ What family? "No," he answered simply, half-turning away and glancing about the shop to hide his bitterness at the mention. "So, uh... you should be all ready to go. If it feels bad or the steering is jostling towards that side of the car, just tell your sister to bring it back. Have her mention she's your sister and I'll fix it for free as long as she doesn't have you pick it up."

"Hey!"

He grinned at her and turned away so he could hit the garage door opener on the nearest wall. The bright light of the sun, still high in the sky on a late March afternoon, spilled into the shop gradually. The yellow car hummed alive pleasantly, filling the shop with the aroma of burnt fuels that it so often held.

She rolled forward up to the door and rolled down the window, leaning out to glare at him. "I'll break it myself, just so I come back and get you fired."

He raised a hand in a little wave. "Happy trails, Arya Stark. Quick, or I'll shut the door on your head."

"Stupid mechanic," she hissed, and then pulled out of the garage before he could reply. He jammed the button to the door shut behind her and stood against the wall for a minute. Remaining that way for several moments, he tried to decide if that interesting conversation had been positive or negative.

"Arya Stark," he repeated. _That name seems like it should mean something..._

And then he caught his face bunching up and his lips pursing as he started to critically think. He swore and trudged off towards the back of the shop again angrily. _Definitely negative._

He locked up the shop, turning off all the lights and bolting all the doors before stealing out the back and retrieving his bicycle from the scrap heap. He lamented his Friday evening as he sullenly rode home, none the better and slightly more irritated for his day of work. By the time he got home he was quite hungry and just as penniless, and just managed to avoid being the target of the yells coming from his landlord's side of the apartment complex.

He avoided staring at himself in the mirror as he showered, relieving himself of the day's grime and sweat. After he had dried off and pulled on a clean shirt he filled his only pot with water and set it to boil on the meek excuse for a stoves he had; a dinner of generic, cheap noodles would have to suffice, but he'd survived off of far less before. Striding to his freezer, he pulled the giant pitcher of water he'd set inside to freeze the previous evening, and pulled a knife out of his bedside cabinet to chip giant chunks of the ice into his sole bucket, which he then filled partially with water.

Setting the radio to broadcast the Monarchs as they took on the Direwolves that very night, he cradled his bucket on his bed and buried his elbow in the ice, hissing at the frosty feeling and then sighing in gratification as the throbbing began to recede beneath the dulling chill. Despite not pitching that day, or throwing in any capacity whatsoever, the ache had not much vanished during the workday.

_I need a new job_, he decided, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes as the broadcaster transported him twenty blocks downtown. _And a new arm. This one's killing me_.

He didn't have much else to do as soon as he'd finished eating. He replaced the majority of the ice that had melted and set the bucket on the floor, lying on the corner of his bed to keep his elbow submerged as the game on the radio progressed. The Monarchs were casually dismantling their opponents of Winterfell, the far outmatched team.

He was surveying the short stack of books that were lying in the corner of the room—relics of his old high school days and dumpsters that represented one of the only things except for baseball that could occupy his mind for more than a few moments—when something very strange happened.

Someone knocked on his door.

_Did that really happen?_ He cocked his head to the side at the sound and sat up slowly. He was never visited… by anybody. Except for his landlord, who would have pounded away at and thoroughly knocked down his door by then. He didn't have many friends; the few he did didn't know where he lived, and contrary to his body's desires he always slept alone.

The knocking continued, and he slid off the bed, pulling his dripping arm from the bucket as he stepped hesitantly towards the door. He had no peephole, only a chain on the door, which he'd slid into place as he'd come in earlier. Cautiously, he pulled back the dead bolt and undid the lock on the door, leaving the chain in its place as he cracked the door and peeked his head to see who was at the threshold.

Arya Stark stood in the hall outside his room, glancing curiously in as he opened the door.

"Arya?" he said incredulously.

"Hi," she said flatly, as if he should have been expecting her. "Can we come in?"

"Why are you here? How did you find me? You_ are _following me..." He stopped as he realized what she had said. _We_. He tried to glance over her shoulder to see who was with her, his worst irrational fears popping to mind, but he could not see past her for how small the gap in his door was.

"I'm not," she said. "Honest. Can you let us in?"

He probably should have been wiser and demanded to see who was with her, but he was still slightly dazed; this was the first time he had ever been visited in his apartment by anyone, an experience he imagined would leave anyone flustered. Because of this, and an unusually irregular urge to trust this strange and potentially creepy girl, he glanced about his meager apartment and decided he could care less about a visitor's opinions of his living. Quickly, he unchained the door and opened it wide while planting himself firmly in the way of his visitors.

Arya stood in the hallway, still dressed as she'd been in the shop, though wearing an eager and much more amiable face. Her small and unimposing frame was overshadowed by the much larger man behind her. He stood a few paces behind her, a few inches shorter than Gendry but similarly muscled if a few more decades on in age. His hair was brown-gray with age and fell in messy strands to his neck. His beard was a steely black and gave him a grizzled, wintery look. The eyes, a startling feature on the man's otherwise unremarkable face, were a sharp grey that perfectly matched the shade of Arya's. They were doubtlessly related, but it was something else entirely that caused Gendry to start.

He recognized the man.

"May we come in?" Arya prompted for the third time, a hint of irritation beginning to creep into her voice.

Gendry's eyes flashed down to hers, and though tempted to step back both to acquiesce and to put some space between them, he held his ground. "What's this about?"

"I want you to meet somebody," she answered. "He might be able to help you."

He eyed the man standing stoically, returning the glare with slight confusion and suspicion, as if even he had even less of an idea why he was there than Gendry did. The young mechanic cleared his throat uneasily. "That's Ned Stark." He realized how that sounded and looked, and he tried to straighten up and remedy the situation. "You're Ned Stark. I mean... I recognize you, sir."

The older man didn't quite smile, but he looked perhaps a little less cold and inhospitable than before. "Yes, I am Ned Stark. And I'm not surprised, though I'm glad you're much more subdued than others who recognize me."

Gendry felt as though he had been hit by a truck. He had heard epic stories of Ned Stark's reign of terror from the mound in major league baseball, gone to great lengths to catch a glimpse of some of the footage. Fifteen seasons with the Direwolves of Winterfell, over two hundred wins and four consecutive strikeout titles. Never had he expected the pitching legend to suddenly show up on his doorstep, escorted by a girl he'd met... in his shop...

_Stark. Arya. Sansa. You are an idiot._

He glanced, bewildered, at Arya, shaking his head. Sure, he'd never made it a point to discover precisely whether or not Ned Stark had a family or daughters, but this was still something he should have seen coming. Especially in King's Landing, such a big baseball citys. "I never figured... I mean to say, I didn't make the connection. I would never have thought..." Her face was somewhere between amused and irritated, and he gave up. "How did you find me?"

"It's called a phonebook," she deadpanned. "May we _please _come in?"

"I'm in a phonebook," Gendry said, dazedly stepping aside. He glanced at the decades-old phone that hung on his wall in the corner, a device he hadn't once used in two years of living in the apartment. "I didn't even know that thing worked."

Arya pushed past him into the small area of his apartment. As she glanced around it snobbishly, Gendry sized up Ned Stark, who stepped up onto the threshold his daughter had suddenly vacated with his hands in his pockets. He was much more polite, inconspicuously sizing up Gendry in the same way. Compared with Gendry's comfortable, carefree garb Stark wore a fine suit, presumably tailored, with a dark blue tie as deep as ice. The dark man made him feel woefully undressed in the (relative) comfort of his own apartment.

The pause of the moment, coupled with his personal life being scrutinized a strange girl he'd only just met—who happened to be the daughter of one of his greatest idols, who was _also_ in his apartment—made him uneasy. "What's this about?"

"My daughter tells me you're a ballplayer," Stark commented wryly from the doorstep.

Arya turned around, and Gendry pointedly glared at her in shock. "I wouldn't quite say that, sir. I like to play the game, but I've never... I've never played in a real environment before. Not really."

Ned Stark raised an eyebrow and turned to face his daughter. "You haven't? Arya seemed very intent to drag me down here to meet you. Said she had discovered a pitching prospect that I couldn't pass on, and I had to do it tonight. Dragged me away from my team's game to do it."

_The 'Wolves. _Of course, Ned Stark had purchased the Winterfell Direwolves about fifteen years before, a short time after he retired from the league himself. That would explain why he was in King's Landing; the Monarchs and Direwolves were locked in their last exhibition matchup before the regular season began, and if Gendry could properly remember the few papers he got his hands on, Ned Stark's all-star son Robb was currently the Direwolves' catcher.

"Oh, don't be dramatic," Arya said to her father, turning around to face him and Gendry. "They're getting crushed, and no one important is even playing, it's all just people who are going to start the season at double and triple-A. I was serious, too. You're not going to want to miss this."

"Miss what?" Gendry exclaimed.

She turned to face him, narrowing her eyes. "You pitching, stupid." Her eyes traveled down to his arm, which was still dripping, and then found the bucket of ice water next to his bed. "Did you throw today already?"

"No," he replied, shrugging and flapping his arm in front of his body. "My arm just hurts. I do this every night, it's the only way I could possibly keep throwing."

"Arya insists I need to see you pitch," Ned Stark said. "Told me she watched you play the other day and couldn't believe she'd never heard of you before. She doesn't say that about just anybody, and she's usually smart enough to recognize talent when she sees it. Even if no one else does."

Gendry blinked, completely overwhelmed. Three minutes ago he had been calmly, quietly letting himself become frozen on his bed, and now he was being interrogated by a girl he'd just met and her father about something he had never been in a real pressuring setting. "Sir, not to be rude, but... I don't know what you're expecting."

Ned Stark surveyed him for a moment, making him even more self-conscious than he already was, and then crossed his arms inquisitively as opposed to defensively. "Well, Gendry, if I may call you that, I expect to see what my daughter's dragged me away from a baseball game to see. Whatever happens, I don't think I'll be disappointed, so why don't you come show me what you've got. If your arm isn't killing you, that is."

"You want me to pitch. Right now." Both Starks nodded at him and he realized he wasn't dreaming these words. "I don't have a catcher, sir."

"I can catch you," Arya volunteered, and Gendry had to bite back his scoff. Luckily, he did, for Ned Stark didn't so much as react to his daughter's outrageous offer, indicating it was less than outrageous, after all.

"I..." _What's going on?_

Gendry stopped. He wasn't certain about anything anymore. He was somewhat used to situations like these, where he had only a portion of information to go upon and had to adapt quickly to his surroundings. He'd experienced it before, when he was struggling to find work and near to starving in the streets, or having to fend mostly for himself in a home of dozens of boys and girls where his size was taken to mean he could take care of himself. In similar times, he usually resorted to trusting in his instincts to tell him what to do, and that was exactly what he settled into then, with Arya and Ned Stark waiting for his reply.

He wasn't sure why, and he wasn't sure what could come of it, but his instincts led him to pause for a second before stepping past Arya and dragging his worn mitt from beneath the corner of his bed. "What the hell. I guess I'll give you what I've got."

Ned Stark nodded and Arya actually beamed. Without waiting for another invitation the younger Stark essentially skipped out of his apartment, her father following after shooting him a brief, appraising look. Gendry took a deep breath once both their backs were turned before grabbing his keys, slipping his shoes back on and locking the door behind him.

The two Starks looked woefully out of place in his apartment building. He half-hoped his landlord would rush out and demand what the commotion was just for the opportunity to see him face down the icy man stalking through his hallways in a suit, as coldly composed as a messenger from any one of the Seven Hells, though perhaps, Gendry suspected, a bit more dangerous. Arya was little better, having far more energy as she descended the stair to the main entrance than any rightful occupant of such a dreary place ought to have.

When they emerged into the quickly waning sun, the car parked on the curb outside the apartment complex caught Gendry's eye, and he halted in shock. It was black, sleek, fast, and tinted, possibly with an electric seal and/or the ability to become invisible while firing missiles from its wheel hubs. All joking aside, it was easily worth more than he had made or spent in his entire life, and Arya walked right up to it as though she'd seen prettier ornamental pots.

He stepped past his bike, eyeing it with sudden embarrassed in distaste, and joined the two Starks on the curb as Arya retrieved a well-colored baseball glove from the back seat of the god vehicle, again making him glance unhappily down at his shabby approximation of the same item. She underhanded him a baseball, which he caught reflexively and began to twiddle between his fingers anxiously.

"Where?" he asked the Starks.

Ned gestured to the street, empty but for his fantastic car and clear in either direction as far as the eye could see, on a bleak Friday night in King's Landing. "Might as well be right here. Go on, Arya. Let's see what Gendry has."

Arya smirked at him with a playful glint behind her stormy eyes and then jogged a short distance around the street, halting at a good approximation of the distance between a mound and home plate. She turned around, immediately got into a crouch, and patted her glove a few times before displaying a target around her knees.

Gendry took a breath, wondering what in the world he was doing, moving to set up as though he were pitching from the stretch. Meekly, he warbled, "I'm not even warmed up, you know."

"Come on," Arya prompted smarmily, smacking her glove while Ned glanced at him warily from the corner of the older man's eye.

The young mechanic swallowed, picked a crack in the blacktop to use as his rubber, and set his feet in their proper position before losing his nerve again. "Sir, I really don't… I don't want to hurt anybody."

"Come on, stupid!" Arya shouted again, this time angrily, her tone streaked with vicious anger. "Throw the ball! Don't be such a girl!"

Ned glanced over at Gendry at the same time Gendry glanced over to the senior Stark for support, and was dismayed when he found the man grinning with amusement. Arya's father offered her only a small shrug and a docile wave in Arya's direction, indicating for him to start.

Sighing, Gendry toed his line again and clutched the baseball by its rough, used surface in his glove. Pulling it out and without looking at it, he rolled it deftly until his index and middle fingers wrapped tightly into a groove by the lace, eyeing his target in Arya's glove twenty yards away. He came set as loosely as he could, willing the crinkle he knew his face was showing away and begging his mind to stop. He knew that once he let go of the baseball in front of Ned Stark, one way or another, he would never be able to look at the beloved game the same way ever again.

Time stilled for a second. It always did.

_Ah, fuck it._

Gendry reared back and launched the white projectile at the young woman crouching twenty yards away, watching it in slow-motion as it careened forward majestically before burying itself in the mitt's webbing. Arya never moved the glove.

He took a small breath as he stood back up, watching as Arya turned the glove over and glanced inside, as if to make sure the baseball was actually there. Once upright, he turned to the side, and was surprised to find Ned Stark's mouth hanging wide open, his face satisfyingly open in a moment of unrestrained shock.

Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, Ned Stark recovered quickly, and turned away from his daughter to Gendry, eyes flashing between the mechanic's arm and his face in diffident disbelief. Arya tossed the ball back to Gendry with a mildly surprised expression of her own. By that time, the Stark man's arms had crossed across his chest and he was shifting between his feet curiously.

"Can you throw that again?" Ned Stark asked quietly. Gendry simply nodded, which Ned Stark returned. "Do it."

Gendry puffed out his cheeks and juggled the ball for a moment in his right hand. Calmly, he dragged his left foot across the blacktop, coming set. Using the same form, the same arm arc, the same released point, he hurled the ball at his maximum velocity towards Arya, this time forcing her to move the glove about two inches to the left before the ball smote its deep pocket.

Her father looked no less impressed as Gendry turned to face him once again. He stood still as ice for several moments in a disbelieving stance, and then shifted from one foot to the other as he frowned thoughtfully. "You have a breaking ball?"

Without waiting to be prompted, Gendry gestured to Arya that his slider was coming. He came set the same as before, lifted his leg and strode the same length, brought his arm over at the same angle... at the last possible second his wrist slipped, throwing his two-finger grip off the ball in a downward-motion as he released it. The side spin imparted took most of the sixty-plus feet to catch the air. Just as it looked like it would sail over Arya's head, it dropped as if it had been batted downward by a celestial hand, arcing sharply to the left. His catcher was only barely able to snag it, two inches above and inside her right knee. A dead strike.

"Gods," he heard Ned Stark whisper to the side, and wondered if he was doing something wrong. He turned to find the older man stalking back to his car, and was afraid he had irrationally offended the man in some way.

Instead of leaping into the driver's seat and speeding away—an action he probably wouldn't have actually done, considering Arya hadn't moved—Ned Stark walked around the vehicle to the trunk, popping it open and meddling with something beyond Gendry's sight. He thought he heard a zipper, and then some more fuddling, and then the man reemerged wielding an apparatus Gendry had only ever seen in possession of a police officer.

Ned Stark fiddled with the speed gun as he walked back to where he had originally been standing, slightly off to the side and behind Gendry. Once it had apparently turned on, he lifted it and pointed it towards where his daughter still lay in her crouch, a look of unexpected delight on her face. "Can you try your fastball one more time?"

Gendry shrugged and obliged him. It hit Arya in the mitt again.

Her father swore and slapped the gun, staring at the screen in clear bewilderment. Whatever it was obviously didn't change, and he glanced up at Gendry once before averting his eyes. Gendry watched uneasily as he slowly made his way back to the car. He paused only to show Arya whatever speed his pitch had been. It was surprisingly satisfying to watch her face warp in astonishment. Nevertheless, as Ned Stark re-stashed the speed gun in his trunk and came back around the car with Arya, Gendry kind of felt as though he was being surrounded for the kill.

"Where did you say you played in college?" Ned Stark asked him.

"I didn't," Gendry replied.

Ned smiled at him. "I know. That was a roundabout way of asking you nicely where you played in college."

"I mean, I didn't play in college." Gendry watched their faces mix from curious to uncertain to disbelieving. He shrugged for the millionth time that unconventional day and continued, "I didn't even go to college. Grades weren't good enough. Not enough money."

Daughter and Father exchanged a glance, in which Arya seemed to sway her father to continue. "Oh. Well, where did you play in high school? I'm really surprised I've never heard your name before, or that you were never looked at by scouts."

"I didn't play in high school, either," Gendry said, his own face screwing up suspiciously. "Same reasons. Why would scouts want to look at me?"

Arya glared at him incredulously while Ned Stark's face twisted into an even deeper scowl. "You're telling me... you didn't play in high school or college? At all? _Never_?"

Gendry shook his head. "No. Why does that surprise you so much?"

"You just threw a 99 mile per hour fastball," Arya blurted.

All three of them blinked, looking at one another. Gendry decided to say something intelligent, which instead came out as, "What?"

Her father was nodding, crossing his arms again as he surveyed the young mechanic. "She's not lying. Unless the damn gun is broke, which I'm sure it's not. Your breaking ball couldn't have been any lower than 90, either, which is freaking fast for a slider, too."

Gendry listened to the words, struggling to put concrete meaning in his mind to things he couldn't so readily accept. _99 MPH? I can't possibly throw that fast... Most major leaguers can't throw it that fast..._ _almost no one can..._ "I don't believe that."

"It's the truth," Arya insisted, glaring at him. "You threw that fast. I told you that you threw hard. You didn't believe me."

"I know I throw hard!" Gendry retorted, dancing on two feet in his startled excitement. "I just... never imagined it would be _that _fast. I've never thrown—I've never _played _anywhere except in the streets before."

"I find _that _hard to believe, but I guess it is so," Ned Stark said. He spent a few moments continuing his bewildered stare at Gendry, and then shook his head, not unkindly, while glancing at a very expensive watch on his hand. "Nowhere but the streets."

"I had trouble learning in school," he replied. "Couldn't concentrate. I wasn't dumb but I couldn't get good enough grades to play sports, so they wouldn't let me on the team, obviously."

The retired legend seemed to enter a deep state of thought for a moment and, only after an eternity of waiting for Gendry to hear what was coming next, seemed to reach a conclusion. "Gendry, you know where the Monarchs play?"

"The Dragonpit, sure," Gendry replied. He had never been inside, and couldn't figure out for the life of him why they had given it its name, but it had always stood on the edge of his vision, like a dream beyond his grasp. "What about it?"

"Tomorrow's Saturday. Can you meet me at the front gate, the main gate, at seven o'clock in the morning?"

Gendry glanced between the two Starks. "Why?"

Arya rolled her eyes. Ned merely grinned. "I want you to show the manager of the Direwolves what you can do. I want to give you a shot to pitch professionally."

He was pretty sure his heart stopped beating. Every dream, every desire, every wish that he had ever suppressed behind a conviction that knew his fantasies were irrelevant and futile suddenly rushed to the surface with a vengeance. He searched Ned Stark's face for any sign of mockery or ruse but didn't find any. Despite the fact that he didn't know the man, he felt as though he would not lie about something so monumental, as well.

"You're serious?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yes," Ned answered. "I would do it right now, in fact, except that the game is probably just getting over now and Luwen won't want to deal with anything for at least the rest of the time after the pounding he's being given. We actually have to run, Arya, I told him we'd be back to speak at the end of the game. The team's flying out tomorrow afternoon back to Winterfell, so it'll have to be bright and early."

"You'll make it, won't you?" Arya asked him, her eyes informing him it would be very foolish of him not to.

Gendry rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. "I guess... Yeah, I can me at the Dragonpit at seven o'clock..."

"Great!" she exclaimed, and pulled a phone from her pocket. "What's your number? In case you get lost."

"I won't get lost," he retorted irritably, pulling his hands from his neck and face and sticking the one that wasn't still holding his glove into his pocket. "I don't have a number to give you, anyway. I can't afford a cell phone."

Arya opened her mouth, perhaps to say something rude, then appeared to think better of it and stuck her phone back into her pocket with a relatively forlorn expression. Ned Stark glanced at his watch again and then stuck out his hand for Gendry to shake. "Well, we have to run. Ice that arm, you're going to need it in the morning. Really good meeting you, Gendry."

"Yeah," Gendry replied, half in a daze, half concentrating on the throbbing ache returning to his elbow to keep himself grounded to reality. "You, too, sir."

Ned Stark quickly walked to the driver's seat of his car and slipped inside, leaving Arya and Gendry standing alone in the street awkwardly. Arya held the mitt in one arm, holding that wrist with her other hand and biting her lip as she stared at him.

"What?" he prompted.

"Nothing. I was right, you know. You're welcome."

Gendry rolled his eyes and pointed at the car. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and walked around the other side of the car to the passenger door. "See you in the morning. Don't be late."

"Don't be late," he repeated incredulously to himself, watching as the car started and drove up the street, out of the slummy area it looked so out of place in. He imagined Arya's smug face, and squeezed his glove in both hands in irritation. "Who does she think I am?"

He didn't know. Nor did he know who he thought she was. Certainly someone who could get under his skin, and certainly someone he could very much enjoy irking. Maybe even someone who he could wind up being very good friends with. Her life was baseball, it seemed, just as much as it was his.

As the sleek car disappeared out of sight, he found himself laughing at his foolishness. _Yeah, you being friends with a girl like that. That'll be the day._


	4. Chapter 3

**By the way, leave any baseball questions you have in a logged-in review or private message if my terminology doesn't make sense to you, and I'll try to explain it better.**

**Yes, I'm quite aware that the physical would take much more time than allowed. For purposes of the story, we're imagining.**

**Not my best work.**

**3**

_He's late_.

Arya sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. The early morning chills of King's Landing pervaded into the spring, and were sweeping the lazy streets surrounding the Dragonpit. Across the street, the bells of the Sept of Baelor, each as tall as two men high up in the great towers of the cathedral, droned the seventh and final tone denoting the hour of the morning. She was sitting atop a concrete border of a flowerbed, while her father and Luwin, the manager of the Direwolves and longtime family friend, stood rigidly several paces away, routinely glancing up and down the sidewalk.

For someone she wanted so badly to show up and succeed—if only so she could later tell all of her family how she, the sports management major, had scouted her first dynamite prospect from nothing—Gendry Waters was already doing a wonderful job of fucking everything up.

Luwin had raised a gray eyebrow when the bells had begun to ring, glancing sidelong at her father with a questioning look only he had ever been able to get away with. It was a disapproving air that she had more than once been on the receiving end of herself from the elderly, bald man, and she could personally say it was less than enjoyable to be met with such a convicted disappointment.

To avoid her dismally falling hopes, she glanced down at her older brother, who was doing his best to go back to sleep beside her on the concrete. She nudged him with her elbow, but Robb merely moaned and batted her arm away before covering his eyes with a hand and trying to descend into slumber once again. "Go away," he groaned. "I didn't get in 'til midnight, and you woke me up at fucking six, if you didn't notice."

"Don't be such a baby about it," she pestered, prodding him with a finger in his side.

Eyeing the two squabbling siblings, Luwin shifted on his feet sternly, made a point of glancing at the watch on his left arm, and then turned to her father. "Well, my lord, how long should we wait for your prospect to show up?"

Her father sent a glare at Arya, who shrugged and gestured for him to wait. "He'll be here. Trust me. He's not the type to back away from this."

"You say that," Luwin commented, "after having met him for about ten minutes?"

"He's right," Arya chimed in. "Gendry didn't seem the type of person who would just shirk off an opportunity like this."

"Forgive me, m'lady," Luwin said dryly, his other eyebrow raising. She hated when he used the title he insisted upon, forgotten to the rest of the world but those old friends who still honored the reputedly ancient Stark house. "I didn't realize you had extensive knowledge of the man."

"I..." She hit a stonewall, caught at a difficult junction; she couldn't admit what Luwin had seemingly hit upon without meaning to. She couldn't admit that she felt as though she knew Gendry, knew his character, even though they had only met the day before that. She had recognized him the moment he turned around in the car shop as the pitcher she'd seen in the alley the previous day, even if it had taken him a while longer to recognize her, and even in the two brief exchanges they'd had she felt as if she understood him more than other people ever had, and vice versa.

Which was completely irrational and idiotic. _Because we just met,_ she reminded herself,_ and just because we both like baseball and are misfits doesn't all of a sudden make us best friends._

"Look," Ned said, and she immediately jerked up, whipping around. "There he is."

Arya swung around to look in the direction he indicated. Sure enough; careening around a corner on a bicycle, dangling the glove he'd used the previous night, looking mightily disheveled and angry, Gendry rode up to them quickly and skidded to a quick halt before them. He wore a pair of black sweatpants, a gray, blank cotton shirt and a pair of ratty sneakers that would have caused Sansa to faint in astonishment. Arya was so angry at him, even if he was only a few minutes late, that she wanted to wring his neck.

She grew even angrier when he addressed her father, not her, first. "I'm really sorry. I got stopped by _two _different cops."

"For what?" she blurted out, before she could help herself.

While Luwin's brow creased and her father's eyes darkened, Gendry merely turned his eyes on her and answered, "They apparently thought it was weird that a guy like me was riding a bicycle full bore down downtown King's Landing at seven in the morning with a baseball glove."

Ned actually laughed, and Luwin seemed to soften. Arya continued to glare, but Gendry's return gaze was calm and composed. _Don't let him get under your skin_, she urged herself, already furious with him. As her scowl deepened and a small smirk appeared on his lean, dark face she realized something. _He's doing it on purpose. The bastard is provoking me on purpose_.

"Gendry," Ned Stark called, and the mechanic's eyes turned away from hers, leaving her curled fists the only sign of their silent war. "I'd like you to meet Luwin, manager of the Winterfell Direwolves, who has forgotten more about baseball than... well, you know how it goes."

Gendry stepped forward heartily and immediately sobered from the grinning fool he'd been in interacting with Arya a minute beforehand, taking Luwin's proffered hand earnestly and firmly. "Sir. Thank you for giving me this time."

"Well, if I trust Lord Stark," Luwin replied carefully, eyeing the aforementioned lord, "and I do, it is well worth my interest to give the opportunity."

"And this is my son," her father continued, "Robb."

Arya hadn't noticed Robb stand up from his place on the flowerbed and saunter up to the rest of them. He and Gendry shook hands briefly, friendly enough, and then both men turned their attention towards their two elders again. Arya did notice, however, Robb eye Gendry's drab garb and raise a single eyebrow in her direction.

"Well, shall we?" Ned announced, holding out an arm towards the gate. Luwin took the invitation first, followed closely by Robb. Ned let Arya bring up the rear with Gendry as he followed his son and friend.

Arya fell into step beside him and glared. "Had to be late, didn't you?" she hissed. Casting an eye back at the bike he had hastily chained to a lamppost, she added, "Why the hell did you ride a freaking bike down here?"

He returned her glare with equivalent malice. "You saw where I live. What the fuck makes you think I can afford a car?"

"You're making me look bad," she snapped, as way of cutting off his point and interjecting the main thesis of her anger. "I vouched for you."

"And I appreciate that," he replied testily as they approached the gate. "I'm not about to go crazy and embarrass you, if that's what you're worried about. I can still throw. Your father has seen that."

She wanted to tell him that Luwin hadn't, and that was the only thing that mattered—or else that he was a stupid bullheaded moron who had never learned how to shut up—but they reached the gate before she had a chance, and Gendry passed through the metal grate being held open by her father. He did not do so without a miniscule hesitation, which Arya wasn't sure anyone else even noticed, but his step faltered for a moment and his eyes flashed upwards at the giant stadium before his feet resumed their course.

"Usually, I'd just fly you up to Winterfell for a tryout like this," Ned told Gendry as Arya slipped through the gates and the three of them continued after her brother, "but this is a cheap alternative, and the Monarchs' owner consented to allowing this. He and I… we have a history, and it was convenient."

"He and Robert Baratheon played together," Arya told Gendry, who merely nodded, as if being informed of something he already knew. Arya scowled at him and turned away. _Snob_.

Luwin and Robb did not lead them through the locked doors that led down into the team clubhouses, as she had thought they would. Instead, they walked directly through the concourse of the stadium, empty except for a few workers driving vending loader carts to and fro, straight into the lowest level of seats. Down the aisles they walked and Luwin opened the small gate at the edge of the nearest dugout, ushering all four of them through before stepping through himself.

The morning was crisp. Even so early, a dozen members of the grounds crew were about the outfield and infield. One drove a large lawn mower near the warning track while others were watering own the dirt outline of the entire field. Arya inhaled deeply, letting the unparalleled aroma of fresh grass and dirt fill her nose. She loved the smell, the feel, the sight, the senses that pulled her so far away from all the work she had left unattended in her dorm. She glanced sidelong at Gendry, to analyze his own reaction; she was curious if he was affected as deeply by the baseball field as she was. He didn't disappoint her; his eyes were as wide as plates, his body on a hinge as he swung one way and then another, drinking in the scene before him. Arya could have actually laughed at how entranced he was, until she reminded herself that this was the first time he had ever seen a professional baseball field in the flesh. The thought sobered her slightly.

Luwin cleared his throat, and Gendry jumped, his reverie broken. "Well, I don't see any reason to delay, do you? Robb, go warm Mr. Waters up. Let's see the spectacle your old man has brought us down here to see."

"Right," Robb nodded, sliding his catcher's mitt onto his hand and slapping it, the same mannerism Arya had adopted over a decade of watching her brother play ball. "Come on, Gendry."

Her brother began to walk in the direction of home plate, and Gendry followed, unsteadily making his way out onto the diamond. He paused as he reached the chalk foul line, and Arya couldn't help but smile as he looked first out towards the corners of right field and then the other way to left, finally glancing at the plate before taking a giant step over the line, into fair territory and out towards the mound. It was as if he had just crossed over a border between worlds—the moment he was on the infield grass, marching towards the mound, Arya had to admit he looked like he belonged.

Robb produced a ball from a pocket of his jacket as he tossed it aside, lobbing it lazily towards Gendry. The two of them began a steady back and forth, building their blood rush and loosening their muscles. Watching them, Arya got the impression Gendry didn't properly warm up very often, but despite the intense look of concentration on his expression that threatened to make another smirk split her face, he didn't appear completely hopeless.

Her father and Luwin moved closer together by her side. The three of them casually strode towards the foul line, watching the two young men playing catch in the middle of the diamond.

In an undertone, Luwin leaned towards her father and murmured, "He looks exactly like…" The trailing off left a clear implication Arya didn't understand, but it was clear her father did, from the crinkling of his brow. "At least, the way he did twenty years ago."

"I noticed it, too," Ned Stark replied. His arms crossed involuntarily against his chest, a brooding look occupying his grey features. "Right when he opened his door, I noticed that. It has to be coincidence."

"If you were so sure of that, my lord," Luwin replied, "you wouldn't voice your opinion."

Her father glanced at his team's manager from the corner of his eye. "You don't actually think that… I mean, King's Landing is a big place."

Luwin shrugged. "Who is to say, my lord? But the features fall right in line. The boy is certainly strong."

Arya absorbed the conversation silently, choosing to listen rather than pry. She was lost as to whatever they were implying without making a blatant statement, but Luwin's last statement made her look closer at the mechanic as he tossed the ball back to Robb. _He's strong_, she agreed, watching the considerably cut muscles in his upper arms flex as he unfolded his arm in its throwing motion. _And fit. He has an athlete's body, lithe and strong and powerful_.

With a start, she realized her cheeks were coloring, and cursed silently. She had meant the words in relation to Gendry strictly from an objective point of view, as an outside observer looking into a baseball situation. She was, however, very happy she had kept such a statement inside of her head, as she eyed Luwin and her father watching Gendry silently.

"You ready to go?" Robb called across the stretch of grass after another minute of throwing.

The mechanic merely nodded, catching the ball in his worn mitt and turning to stalk up the hill to the mound. Robb assumed his crouch with the adept agility and flexibility he and other freaks of nature who called themselves major league catchers were seemingly able to do twenty-four hours a day.

Luwin crossed his arms, as well, making him nearly a carbon copy of Ned down to the furiously focused expression on their face. Beside him, Ned shouted to Gendry, "Just throw like you did yesterday when I was there."

Gendry nodded, without looking. His heel toed the rubber, his gaze locking in on Robb's mitt as he had on Arya's yesterday. The look on his face was focused, but in a different way than any she had previously observed on him. He was in his zone; she wouldn't have been surprised if he had not heard her father at all.

He hesitated a long moment in his stance, Robb and Luwin and Ned and Arya all waiting patiently for him to stride and release. When he finally did, his step was more pronounced, more thought out, and more intentional than those he'd taken yesterday, this time not striding outward but striding downward, down the plane of the mound. His arm whipped around familiarly, and the ball left his hand in a straight arc. Robb was used to catching mid-nineties fastballs, and so was slightly more prepared than Arya had been the day before, snagging it in his glove and framing it where the outside corner would have been.

There was a moment of quiet as Robb retrieved the ball from his glove and tossed it back to Gendry, and then Luwin whistled, low and steady. The bald manager turned to her father and raised his eyebrows. "Can he do that again?"

Ned gestured towards the mound, and they proceeded to watch Gendry deliver five more pitches to Robb, dropping the ball in or near the strike zone each time. He shook his arm between the fourth and fifth pitches with a barely perceptible clenching of his teeth, Arya noticed, but returned to the mound and delivered the next pitch with just as much force and conviction.

_Stubborn, _she thought, with a wry, grudging admiration. _Stubborn as a bull_.

"He has speed, I'll give him that," Luwin murmured, the tone of his voice unguarded and implying he was far more impressed than he let on. "Easy to tell he's not trained right. Horrible mechanics. His arm dips sideways… if that doesn't change his elbow's bound to have problems in a few years, if it doesn't already."

"Mechanics are fixable," Arya's father said. "Throwing a ball ninety-nine miles per hour isn't. You don't teach that."

"Is he really throwing that hard?"

"It's what my gun said yesterday, and I check three different times when I got back to the hotel to see if it was working properly. It was." He paused a moment to let Luwin watch Gendry hurl a pitch home. "He hasn't lost any velocity. If anything, he's throwing harder."

"Any other pitches besides the fastball?" Luwin wondered.

As way of answer, before her father could answer, Arya cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, "Gendry! Throw your slider!"

He glanced up briefly at her words and then nodded. Returning to the mound, he surprised her by offering the correct signal to Robb for a breaking ball before coming set. For whatever insult Luwin had about mechanics, if she hadn't known it was coming Arya wouldn't have been able to tell from his arm motion. Nevertheless, the ball arced spectacularly halfway to the plate and Robb was only just able to snag it a half foot above the dirt.

Luwin's breath hitched, and Arya had to grin when she glanced at his face. The manager released the air in his lungs in a coarse hiss and shook his head in brief disbelief. "I want him. I can't tell what I thought when I saw him roll up twenty minutes ago, my lord, but you've proved me wrong."

"I had hoped you'd say something like that," her father replied, grinning himself and eyeing Arya behind Luwin's back. "I have much the same thought, you can imagine. I'm glad we're on the same page. You know our pen's been shorthanded since Harwin went down with the separated shoulder last year. He's not ready for the big leagues again, and we lost Murch to Pyke in free agency."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Luwin stated, seeming to sober himself as he held up a hand. "You say he's never played any real ball. Never in an actual game situation."

"He's played in game situations," Arya piped up. "Just not in an organized fashion. You won't have to worry about that, though, he's so competitive he'll pick it up in a heartbeat."

Luwin scrutinized her. "Forgive me, my lady, but I'll have to analyze that for myself. Regardless, it would be a feat indeed for him to step right off of the streets and right into the big leagues. Nevertheless, I loathe to think what would happen if we passed on him and he showed up in someone else's farm organization."

"So you'll offer him a contract?" Arya blurted gleefully.

"Assuming all passes well with his physical," Luwin said. Quickly, turning to her father, he added, "And his background check. I feel as though we'd best figure out everything we can about Gendry Waters before we sign him out of the blue. Once other teams hear what we've done and see what he can do they and the media will be on us like flies."

"Agreed," Ned replied. "I'll take care of that, don't worry about it. Do you want to see more, or can we get right to the facilities? I took the liberty of having Hullen come down, just in case you decided you liked him."

Arya grinned at her father; him preemptively arranging for the Direwolves' trainer's presence showed his confidence in Gendry, and to a lesser degree, his confidence in her. She was reminded of how mindlessly and trustingly he'd followed her the previous day when she had burst into his purchased box on the third level of the stadium and insisted he come and see an unproven, unheard of prospect in the middle of slummy Flea Bottom. Theirs was a special link when it came to baseball; a link Ned Stark had tried to hold with all of his children. For some, it had held, as in Robb and Arya. In others, as in Sansa, it hadn't. Then there was Bran, who... couldn't anymore. And Jon. That was something else entirely.

"All right, guys!" her father called again, clapping his hands a few times to emphasize himself. "We've seen enough! Come on over!"

Gendry lobbed the ball back to Robb and then both boys trotted back over to the older men and Arya. Robb clapped Gendry on the back and appeared almost as overwhelmed and delighted as her father and Luwin. Gendry accepted the camaraderie in-step, with a glance that wasn't quite familiar but friendly enough. Arya, for some reason, was relieved that her brother and the mechanic—who could throw faster than most cars moved—were getting along.

Luwin broke the short silence that encompassed them. "That was rather impressive, Gendry. Where did you say you learned to play?"

Gendry shrugged. "In the streets. I've never really had a coach before."

"Really?" Robb said. He looked near a scoff, but the grave looks on everyone else's face forced him to take the situation seriously. Gendry affirmed it and he whistled. "You learned all that without any instruction? How?"

"Watching. Imitating. Improvising, a little bit of everything until it felt kind of right and worked when I was pitching to people. They missed, so I figured it couldn't be horrible."

"There are certainly some things that need fixing if you want to succeed on a high level," Luwin commented, not unkindly, continuing, "But those are not big issues. What you can throw is very impressive, and any else that needs tweaking will only add to the quality of your pitches."

Gendry shifted on his feet. "Does that mean..." He paused, glancing at Arya and rubbing at his neck nervously. She tried to nod him on, and after a moment he tried again. "Does that mean that... I made it?"

"Why don't we take you down to see our trainer, get a physical first?" Arya's father replied, sweeping an arm towards the dugout they had entered behind. "After that, we can talk about where to go from here."

Gendry acquiesced—as if he was not surprised enough to do anything else. After a brief word with their father, Robb climbed back through the gate and departed, presumably to head back to the hotel, while Luwin, Ned, and Gendry descended the steps into the dugout, Arya nipping at their heels uninvited but not unwanted, she figured. She almost ran into Gendry as he stopped for a moment to drink in the smell and appearance of the dugout, as well, knocking him with her shoulder just for the hell of it as she stalked past him and followed her father and Luwin up the tunnel towards the clubhouse.

She had never been down here in the Dragonpit before, but the general layout of the inner team rooms was pretty much the same as the Direwolves' back in Winterfell. The first rooms split into a stocked trainers' facility and the locker room, out of which also branched the showers; further down the hall, there was a weight room and a film room next to the conference room. The locker room was empty, the team long since cleared out, but Hullen, the gruff old trainer who had possessed more injuries himself than he knew how to heal, was lounging inside one of the empty ice tubs, reading a fishing magazine. A few electronic bicycles and ellipticals sat against the opposite wall with some sick beds and a large machine with a scanning table.

Her father knocked on the door as they sidled up, and Hullen peered up from the magazine to glare at them with one eye closed. "Well, top o' the mornin' to ya, Master Stark! I was told ya wanted me down here for somethin' today, bright and early."

"Yes, thanks for coming, Hullen," Ned said, drawing back and presenting Gendry behind Luwin. The mechanic swallowed and stepped around Arya into the room, stepping forward anxiously. "This is Gendry Waters, Hullen. I'd like for you to run him through a quick physical before we get on the plane later."

"Physical, eh?" Hullen said, climbing out of the tub with little agility and fixing Gendry with an assessing eye as he stuck out a scarred hand. "Nice to meet you, Master Waters."

"Likewise." For his nervous body language, his voice never wavered.

"Anything special?" Hullen asked her father.

"No. Just the stipulation for the contract." Ned eyed Arya and grinned at her. "A very special find, Gendry is. No normal prospect, and no normal means of coming across him, either. Do a full MRI, if you would so please. The Monarchs can bill us for that expense."

"Will do, boss," Hullen growled good-naturedly, and patted one of the sick beds in the direction of Gendry. "Hop up there, lad, and we'll get this over with right and quick."

As Gendry moved to comply, Arya sat down in a chair on the wall while Hullen accessed the computer network from a laptop seated on the counter. Her father, while this was happening, tapped Luwin on the arm and murmured, "A word, Luwin?"

The two older men left the room. Gendry sat on the table, waiting for Hullen to ready himself, staring at Arya in a strange way. She raised an eyebrow at him and mouthed, "What?"

He didn't reply, only grinned at her in an absurdly goofy way that made her want to blush again. For that, she frowned instead, mad at both him for eliciting that reaction and herself for letting it happen. To her dismay, her grumpiness only served to make him grin wider before he sobered as Hullen turned around. She was left to crumple back in her seat with her arms crossed and sulk.

Hullen began to ask Gendry a series of basic health and medication questions, to which the answers were usually a toss-up between "I don't know" and "No". He had no irregular lung conditions, no freak or recurring injuries, no allergies or medications. He stood six foot three and weighed about two hundred and twenty pounds. Arya drank in the information greedily, as she did every time she inspected a new baseball player. That was how one entered a tactical situation in a baseball game; knowing your opponent's traits, tendencies and weaknesses.

"Any unusual pains or aches that stick around regularly?" Hullen asked Gendry at one point.

Gendry hesitated, and then answered, "Just my arm. My elbow."

Hullen approached him and took Gendry's right arm in his hands, turning it over, pressing his fingers into it, and testing its flexibility by carefully bending his arm several ways. "Heh. Your throwing arm, yes?" Gendry nodded. After a moment, Hullen dropped the arm and tapped a few keys on his keyboard. "Well, if there's anything the matter with it, I'm sure the MRI will show it. We'll get to that later. Take your shirt off, and we'll get started."

Arya felt her blush coming before he'd even reached for the hem, and surreptitiously glanced to the side to try and hide it. When she looked back, Gendry was pulling it over his head nonchalantly, completely unperturbed by her presence, but Hullen was eyeing her skeptically, as if only just registering that she was there.

"Go on, there, young lady," Hullen commanded, gesturing towards the door. "I can't imagine your father would want you to be here. Best be on with you, and catch up with Mr. Luwin and him. You'll be notified the same as the rest of them."

Arya chose not to argue in favor of trying to salvage her dignity. It infuriated her that she was behaving like this; usually she could count the number of times she blushed in a year with her fingers. It was the third time that day that she had been smitten by one in the presence of the damned mechanic. _What's wrong with me?_

She succeeded in not looking in Gendry's direction as she left the training room, and saw that her father and Luwin had entered the conference room and shut the door behind them. She repressed her mischievous desire to eavesdrop and instead slumped down against the wall, opening a game on her phone to pass the time.

Before long, while the muffled whispers of her father and the Direwolves' manager leaked unintelligibly through the door and Hullen executed gods-know-what health analyses on Gendry, Arya's mind wandered out of the ballpark, back to the real world she always avoided by sinking back into baseball.

It would be nice to be back in Winterfell. Back with the family again. It wouldn't be complete without Sansa, of course. _But she wants to go on and ruin her freaking life, so what have I got to say about it?_ At least she would get to see Bran for the first time since Christmas, and Rickon. Robb would be in town half of the summer, and she could perhaps manage to have a civilized conversation with her mother that lasted more than a few seconds.

But there were things that wouldn't be good about going home, too. Jon's empty room, which, up until the accident three years before, had always been a haven for her. Bran's... condition, always a struggle to him, always a misery to the family, always a future that could have been and wasn't and could never be. Catelyn's reluctance and wry eye, at everything Ned had built and everything that Arya loved.

Her thoughts alternated between looking forward to the end of the semester and her reserves about her family. She still sat there sifting through her mixed feelings when the conference room door opened and Luwin and her father emerged. No sooner had they done so than did the trainers' room also open and Gendry and Hullen walk out, Gendry looking none the worse for wear, if a bit sheepish.

"How'd it go, Hullen?" her father asked him as she scurried to her feet to join them.

"Eh," the trainer replied, screwing up his face and shrugging. Gendry frowned. "He's a brute, but he's a healthy brute, for the most part. Blood pressure could be better, but at least he's got a head start on the heart attack he'll have at our age."

Gendry glared at him, but the other men were merely nodding. "Excellent," Luwin said.

"The MRI results on the arm will be a few hours in coming," Hullen continued. "I've arranged to have them faxed to me as soon as they're ready and I'll get back to you with those when I've glanced them over, probably on the plane."

"I understand."

"Will that be all then, Master Stark?" Hullen checked his watch and scratched his face. "It best be time to collect my things and be off to the airport before the team bus leaves. Otherwise I'll be caught with all those bloody miscreants."

"Yes, that should be all. If there's a moment there, get a glance at Harwin before we board, will you?"

Hullen growled, but nodded. "If the lad would stop being a pussy about it maybe he could actually make a career out of himself. I'll see you there, gentlemen. M'lady."

She couldn't help but grin at the complaint Hullen made about his own son's injury, but it was wiped clean at the title she so dearly hated. She saw Gendry glance at her curiously and they made peripheral vision eye contact. She scowled at him, but that only seemed—as _always_—to cheer him up. If she were a step closer and could get away with it, she would have punched him.

Hullen made his way out in the reverse direction of the field, sneaking out a backdoor and leaving the four of them there by themselves. After exchanging a look with Luwin, her father stepped forward and addressed Gendry. "What would you say to going out for breakfast, Gendry? We have something we would like to discuss with you."

An expression of excitement flitted across Gendry's face before being replaced by his classically stubborn frown. "I... can't pay."

Ned Stark blinked at him, and then barked an amiable chuckle. "You don't have to worry about that, son. We'll definitely take care of it. What do you say to it?"

"Sure," Gendry answered, his voice implying that he was all for it.

The two older men again led the way, out the back doors the way Hullen had departed. They wound their way through a short network of bright, wide tunnels, before ascending a flight of stairs and emerging back onto an area of the concourse right next to a gate. Ned led them all across the street to the parking ramp where he and Luwin had both parked earlier after he had picked Arya up from her dorm room.

As they were ascending the parking ramp stairwell, a rather loud process, Gendry bent down towards her and muttered in a low voice, "What do they want to talk to me about?"

"What do you think?" she replied, smirking up at him. He withdrew then, masking himself with indifference and entertaining his own thoughts. She continued to watch him for several moments afterwards, wondering what serious thoughts could be crossing his mind when a million men across the country would cut off one or more extremities for the opportunity he was about to receive.

Her father drove his rented vehicle, which he never took anywhere without at least one bag of baseball gear stowed in the trunk. Arya rode shotgun, and Gendry slid into the seat behind her silently while Luwin drove himself. As Ned steered out of the parking ramp and onto the busy King's Landing streets, she caught herself staring at the bull-headed pitcher in the sideview mirror inconspicuously. She need not have worried about being noticed; his attention was clearly elsewhere, though on what only he knew, most likely the same reserved thoughts he had been holding since they left the stadium.

Whatever they were kept him distracted enough that he had absolutely no idea he was being spied on quite intently from the front seat. Arya tried to look away, more than once, but each time she only found her gaze drawn back to him in a way that was almost magnetic. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, and perhaps she would have if her father hadn't have been there, but she also didn't want to pry into another person's business, for once. With other people, their business was silly to her and she usually didn't care about meddling in it one way or another, but Gendry was different. Gendry was alone and quiet and stubborn and lonesome, and surprisingly intelligent for how long it took him to think sometimes. And he loved baseball. The combination intrigued her in a way that no one else ever had.

Which also scared her. In a way.

She was still staring when her father started shaking her arm, and she realized that he had pulled into the parking lot and that even Gendry was making to get out of the car. Belatedly, she apologized sheepishly and climbed out of the car. The last thing she needed was to be fixed with the suddenly familiar "you seem to be going crazy" look Gendry was shooting her, and she merely pushed him lightly to follow her father as Luwin pulled into the parking spot beside them.

The diner was small and quiet, and no one, thankfully, recognized their father as they were shown to a table and given their menus. They selected their choices and ordered them quickly with a waitress. It was not yet even ten in the morning, the Direwolves' flight leaving at three, but Arya knew her father liked to get to airports at least three hours before his flight, but insecurity reasons he had never explained but which her mother told her were the result of a rude practical joke early in his playing career. It sounded like a story she would have loved to hear, but neither of her parents had ever been willing to share it with her, before.

Luwin and her father made small talk, and to her surprise, Gendry responded with a manner of social skill. Arya watched grudgingly as he politely answered all of their questions about where he went to school and how he had come to love baseball. He shrugged off their inquiries about his family with only a slight wince of discomfort, and even asked a few questions of his own about Ned's playing career or Luwin's desire to manage. They didn't pay her much attention, which she didn't mind; instead, she absorbed the common information Gendry was willing to tell them, and wondered at the secrets he was hiding behind their conversation.

Their meals came, and her interest in the conversation diminished as she delved into her skillet. The men were rather entranced with their food, as well, though she finally noticed Gendry appearing curious about the situation. He would steal uneasy and impatient glances at her every few bites, that seemed to say, "Make them get on with it, already."

Finally, all four plates were pushed away, and Arya's father leaned forward intently with clasped hands. Luwin seemed at ease, gazing lightly across the table at Gendry, but both Gendry and Arya were on the edges of their seats. They had been waiting for the moment since the two older men had walked out of the conference room.

"I'm going to go about this bluntly, Gendry," he began. "We like what you have. We like the potential you have. We think you should look into getting an agent, because we want to offer you a contract, and it would be best if you had some representation on your behalf."

Arya's heart soared. _They're offering him a contract. _I _discovered a prospect and now Luwin and Dad are offering him a contract!_

Gendry stiffened across from her, and for a moment a cold pit of fear that he was reconsidering seized her. Her dread was only dissuaded when he cleared his throat and said, "I can't afford an agent, but I won't need one. I can read, that's enough. I can negotiate for my own contract, if need be."

"Are you sure?" Luwin asked gently. "There are several general managers—Roose Bolton of the Flayers, Petyr Baelish of the Monarchs, to name a few—that will very quickly take advantage of you if you are not careful."

"They're not the ones offering," Gendry replied gruffly, his shoulders squared as if for doing battle. "And I can fend for myself."

Luwin and Ned Stark exchanged a glance, and Arya sighed under her breath. _Like a bull. Stubborn bull._

"Very well, then," her father said, after a moment. He spread his hands and placed them on the table in a nonthreatening, placating gesture. "Pending your total physical records, we would be willing to offer you a substantial minor-league contract."

Gendry paused, contemplating the words. "What does substantial mean?"

"The numbers I came up with originally would be three hundred and forty thousand dollars over one year, with a one hundred thousand dollar signing bonus," her father said. "If you had other figures you had in mind, I'm certainly willing to hear your argument."

From the look on the mechanic's face, Gendry had absolutely no problem with the numbers. Arya lamented, in brief astonishment, that the four hundred and forty thousand dollars was probably more money than he had earned in his life... probably more money than the lifetime of work in the shop he was otherwise cursed with would cumulatively give him.

Several seconds later, Gendry finally recovered and clamped his jaw shut as his eyes found Ned Stark's. "The amount sounds good to me. Why only one year?"

Her father hesitated. Arya had been wondering that herself, but had not intruded into the conversation to voice her curiosity. "Respectfully, as much as we're excited to have you, you're untrained and unproven, and that money total is rather a lot for an undrafted prospect who has never really... well... done anything. I don't mean to give offense. It's just a baseball investment."

"I understand," Gendry murmured. He glanced at Arya again, and she could see the disbelief in his gaze. He dropped his eyes to the table and wrung his hands in his lap nervously as he thought. His expression screwed up again, as if he was in pain, and she bit her lip to hide a smile. "If I... agree to this, if I sign your contract, where do we go from there?"

"Once the contract is drafted and you sign it, Luwin and I would like you to begin in Blackhaven with our single-A affiliate," her father replied. "It's only about a forty-five minute flight south of here, and you'd be acclimated to the weather better than any of our other affiliates. It will also give us a chance to see what you can do without you undertaking the pressure of having to face elite hitters right away. If you're successful in Blackhaven, we'll see where we take you from there. How does that sound?"

"Perhaps not the most extravagant beginning to fulfilling dreams," Luwin supplied softly. "But all legends and losers alike must begin somewhere, and everyone must make their own way to the top."

Gendry pondered this for a moment, and then surprised Arya by turning directly to her and fixing her with his blue stare. She felt paralyzed, as though the tidal wave of a raging sea storm was crashing over her. "What do you think?"

A moment passed before she was actually certain he had been asking her. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then simply shrugged. She knew what she was going to say, even if it wasn't perhaps the approach he'd been looking for. "It sure beats the hell out of fixing cars all day."

For a second, she thought she'd said something critically wrong, but then Gendry grinned, a miniscule upwards turn of the corners of his lips. She watched him turn to her father and nod. "I think I'll accept your offer."

"I'm glad," her father replied, offering his own smile. "I'll have the contract written up, then, and I'll contact you in a few days so you can sign it and we can arrange for your travel and placement in Blackhaven."

"How will you contact me?"

"By..." Ned Stark grunted. "By telephone, presumably. You should go out and get yourself a cell phone, perhaps."

Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing away. "I can't afford one, sir."

"You can now," Arya pointed out.

"And we'll write that into the contract," her father said, chuckling a bit to himself. "Hopefully, no one will find that strange. They shouldn't, I suppose, it's almost definitely been done before. In any case, bill it to us, Gendry."

From the way he was still crinkling his face, Arya could read his discomfort like an open book. She imagined what was going through his head, and had to remind herself that since yesterday he had taken about thirty steps outside of his comfort zone, which was an admirable risk at the best of times. Quickly, before he could say anything else, she came to his rescue. Sort of.

"I'll go with him to get it," she blurted. The two older men turned their gazes and her, and she quickly added, "And everything. Then he can give me the number and I can get it right to you, so you can arrange directly with him about the contract. And stuff."

_What is wrong with me?_ She shouldn't strange, out-of-character, and silly even to her own ears. Only the gods knew what she sounded like to them; offering to go out of her way to help some strange man purchase a cell phone? Then again, it was only Gendry, and for his snobbishness at least he was of the rare crowd of whom she didn't feel an irrepressible urge to tear apart. Actually... she found that she liked him. He didn't have the superficial surface that a ton of other people had; he seemed honest, straight-spoken, and, like her, there were parts of him that he kept tightly bottled up so that no one could see them. They were very similar in many ways, and that made his company pleasant.

_What the hell are you saying? You don't know him. You just met him._

To her vast relief, after only a moment Ned Stark raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Well, that would certainly make sense. Does that work for you, Gendry?"

The mechanic nodded, glancing between the two Starks. "That would probably be for the best, yeah."

"Splendid," Luwin announced happily. Or, at least, with the grim expression of content Arya usually associated with Luwin's near-happiness.

The two older men spoke pleasantly for only a few moments longer, and then the endings to the gathering were made. They all stood, the manager and owner shook hands with Gendry, Arya hugged them both, and then they were departing the diner without incidence. Ned called a taxi for the two of them and then said a quiet goodbye to her.

"See you soon, little wolf," he whispered to her as he hugged her one last time. "Don't let him get overwhelmed. We'll be with him every step of the way."

"Already are, Dad," she replied, smiling. "See you at Christmas."

With a final wave, her father pulled his rental car out and left the parking lot, Luwin already gone. Arya waved until he turned out of sight, and then faced Gendry, who had watched them go with his hands stuck firmly in his pockets and his face set in an unintelligible expression. She stared at him for several moments after as he didn't move, continuing to gaze blankly after them.

"Oi, stupid," she called lightly, causing him to blink and turn his eyes on her. "Not lost, are you?"

He didn't reply immediately, kicking at the sidewalk absent-mindedly. She was just deciding he'd gone mute when he looked her straight in the eye again. "It's like a dream. I'm terrified if I trip or run into something I'll sit up in bed and have to get to work again. Work..." He ran a hand through his unkempt black hair, the blue of his eyes dancing. "I can quit work now. I can get a better apartment... maybe even buy a car. My gods..." He looked at her again. "I'm _not _dreaming, right?"

"Not unless we're having the same dream." Arya smirked. "And I'm not running away from you screaming, so it's definitely not one of my nightmares."

He grunted at her. "But this is really happening? Not some sort of cruel joke?"

"No joke," she said, stepping towards him and crossing her arms. "You're really going to be a professional baseball player. How does it feel?"

"Unreal," he answered. His voice was distant, not rough and strong as it usually was but whimsical.

She watched him, content for a few moments to trace the features of his face with her eyes while he was distracted. "You know, you really should be thanking me. If I hadn't've said something to my father, you would be lying in bed right now dreading the cars you'd have to fix on Monday."

He eyed her again, this time narrowly and grudgingly. "Not very modest, are you? Little spitball of annoyance. What was that your dad just called you? Little wolf?"

Arya bristled, and looked away, surprised he'd heard the intimate exchange with her father. "None of your business. And don't call me that."

"Okay," Gendry replied, his smirk returning and his eyes twinkling. He was doing it again; getting under her skin without apparently trying. "I'll just have to come up with my own nickname for you, then. Something nice and annoying."

"Don't you dare," she threatened.

He didn't flinch under her death glare. "Maybe something like 'Arry' or 'Lumpyhead'. Those fit, eh? Or 'Cat'. You're more like a cat than a wolf, anyway."

"This cat's claws are about to be buried in your face, _Lumpyhead_," she snarled angrily, as the taxi pulled into the parking and she began to stalk towards it. "Hurry up, you arrogant bull, before I call my father and tell him to reconsider."

When she turned around, the look of glee had vanished from Gendry's face and he had paled. She ducked into the taxi to hide her triumphant smirk as he practically sprinted to make it to the taxi, and glanced innocently out of the window as he slid in opposite her and she relayed their destination to the driver.

* * *

The flight was still an hour away from Winterfell when Ned saw Luwin stand a few rows ahead of him. He was speaking on a cell phone with a grim—grimmer than usual, that is—look on his face, and hung up gingerly as he made eye contact with Ned and quickly moved out of the aisle with the Direwolves' pitching and hitting coaches to join Ned in his a few rows behind.

_What now? _Ned wondered as Luwin sat down in the seat next to his slowly. He set aside the paperwork and stat sheets he had been pouring over, steeling himself for whatever blow his team's manager was about to deliver.

"What is it?" he prompted courageously.

"I'm afraid Hullen's just sent back some very bad news, my lord," Luwin began. "The boy's got a hole in the collateral ligament of his elbow. He needs Tommy John, Ned."

_Gods_. Tommy John. Just the mention made Ned shiver. Blessed as he'd been in his own playing days, he'd never needed surgery of any kind, much less the dreaded Tommy John. He'd heard horror stories from many of his teammates who had undergone the operation, however; twelve months recovery for a pitcher, eighteen in some especially poor situations. Many players never recovered from such an extensive operation as the replacement of the ligament, and in one so young as Gendry, the injury could very well be crippling.

Ned leaned back in his seat woefully, thoughtfully, and then suddenly remembered the readings he'd seen on the speed gun the previous evening, watching Gendry hurl heat down the middle of a Flea Bottom street. "You're telling me... that the lad threw a ninety-nine mile per hour fastball with a _hole _in his arm?"

Luwin shook his head, clearly short of an answer. "It appears so. I'm as shocked as you are. How he could ever pitch—and pitch _well_, no less—through that pain is beyond me. It's a wonder he didn't tear the ligament in half with as hard as he throws."

"Surgery would take a year to recover from," Ned said, thinking aloud.

"It would be spending over a hundred thousand dollars on an unproven pitcher who has never seen a real baseball field," Luwin commented. "Not to mention signing him for a significantly larger portion of money than that. The transaction will definitely attract the notice of the league office, and we would be laughed out of the market for anyone."

"Maybe," Ned replied, "but how often do you find a guy in the street who can throw that hard? This is a diamond find, Luwin, and we can't just pass it up."

Luwin sat quietly for a moment, looking at the hands calmly folded in his lap. After a long moment, he sighed, and then folded his hands the opposite way. "The young Waters failed his physical, my lord. By rule, we cannot sign him without putting him through the surgery procedure. And if we did so, there is absolutely no guarantee he could return to the form he showed us today after recovery."

"No other team would make this investment."

"Exactly."

Ned had made the comment, however, for a different reason than Luwin seemed to ingest. "I was like him once, Luwin. I was a nobody in a small college in the north while my brother was on the fast track to fame. Then he got hurt, and someone important gave me a chance. Thirty years later, here we sit. In another life, I could be in a position as low as his is now. Damned if I'm going to leave him to rot in that life forever."

The two of them lapsed into silence. Ned was remembering that moment long ago, when word had come from King's Landing that his brother's career was most likely over and a contract offer was made that changed a team's dynasty and changed his life. Luwin's thoughts were his own, but the wise man he knew was probably considering Ned's anecdote.

After a while, Luwin cleared his throat. "There is one other possibility, my lord. We could ignore the MRI in our report to Major League Baseball and sign him to the contract anyway. He would not undergo the surgery. He could go to Blackhaven and begin his development as planned, pitching through the injury as he's already done. Our trainers could aid his elbow as best they could while he did so."

"Lie? You want to lie?" Even after the manager nodded, it took Ned several moments to take him seriously, and when he finally did he felt a grin spread on his face. "Why, Luwin, you cold-hearted bastard, I never would have thought you had it in you."

Luwin ignored the quip as he allowed a slight smirk to curl his lips. "It would seem the most prudent course of action for the boy's future and for your own wishes, my lord, if not for the boy's health."

"Who else knows about the hole?"

"As of now, only you, Hullen, and I. Hullen's sworn to secrecy and no one else even knows Gendry was tried out this morning except for your son, who isn't about to go off spouting your managing secrets to anyone. If you want to bury the MRI and run with it, there won't be much in your way to stop you. If the injury gets worse, we can always discover it anew, and by then he will have shown at least partially what he can do, and we will have a better idea whether or not to offer a renewal after the surgery and the season."

Ned caught his manager's eye and held it. "We're really willing to do this?"

Luwin shrugged. "Well, he might be a wash-up. We do not know yet. I am not opposed to bending the rules, though, in favor of this... expedition."

Ned needed only a few more seconds of thought before his mind was made up. He offered a silent prayer to the gods that the execution of their plan would not injure Gendry, and then nodded. "Very well. I'll have it drawn up. When it's ready, I'll fly back down and meet with him personally to have him sign it."

"My lord," Luwin murmured, glancing over his shoulders and towards the aisles where the rest of the team sat before lowering his voice and continuing, "do you think we should tell him?"

"I'm not sure," Ned answered. He sighed. "If anything Arya told me was true, he won't want to quit, either, and it clearly hasn't bothered him enough up to this point that he's wanted to stop pitching. Even if we told him, he would refuse to have the surgery done."

"So we're not going to tell him," Luwin nodded, his tone neither approving nor disapproving. "Very good, my lord. I will inform Hullen to remain silent about the development and call Dondarrion in Blackhaven to tell him he'll be receiving a new reliever. With his arm as it is, I imagine we'll want to mix him in slowly from the bullpen and see what happens."

"Agreed," Ned said, releasing a strained breath and reaching for the paperwork again. He was eager to be home, but he also wished his daughters were with him. The incidents in the capitol had made him very nostalgic for the days when his family was together, and the most he had to worry about was finding time to coach Robb's little league and make sure Arya didn't get into any fights with boys three times her size.

As if reading his thoughts, Luwin turned back and asked softly, "How is Robert?"

The phone call during his lunch with his daughters rushed back, and Ned rubbed at his beard anxiously. "Still in critical condition. They're not... they don't know yet." He pondered silently, and then angrily added, "They still haven't found the car or driver that hit him... hit and runs in the capitol of the kingdom, what nonsense is that?"

Luwin watched him a moment longer, and then nodded, moving back towards his own seat forward up the aisle. Ned stroked his face for a second longer and stared up the plane until he caught sight of the back of Robb's head, leaned up against the seat in slumber. He couldn't help but picture Gendry sitting where Robb was.

_Gods, please do not let me harm the boy. Please make the choice I've made the right one._


	5. Chapter 4

**4**

The taxi was more or less silent as they were driven to the mall Arya had chosen. Without consenting with him, no less. He hadn't forgotten his bike, most likely chained illegally, outside of the Dragonpit. _Then again, fuck it. They can ticket me if they want, I'll be able to fucking pay for it now._

_ A professional ball player._ He still couldn't believe it. Despite Arya's assurance back at the diner, he still pinched himself several times a minute to be sure he wouldn't wake up anytime soon. More than once he stole a glance at her, but her face was turned out the window with her jaw firmly set, mind clearly elsewhere. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but decided that would be too strange, settling instead for wondering independently.

After a while, she turned her head and they found themselves staring at each other, each with a slightly raised eyebrow, as if neither of them quite knew how they had arrived at the situation. After a while, the grey storm overwhelmed Gendry and he glanced down, smiling slightly. "Your father's a very kind man."

"Yes, he is." He watched her bite her lip in clear hesitation. "You recognized him, that first day, but you didn't freak out or beg him for an autograph. It was nice, for a change. I think he enjoyed it, too. Being treated... normal."

"Is he not normal?" Gendry asked with a laugh.

Arya shrugged at him, her eyes downcast across the taxi seat that separated them. "He's not treated like it, ever. Except by you. It was weird. You're different." She scrutinized him for a moment. "You're the strangest person I've ever met from King's Landing. My classmates aren't anything like you."

"Your classmates," he repeated. "At the university. Are you really comparing me to them?"

"Why not?" she said. "You're not all that different from _them_, you know. You seem to be at least as smart as most of them. I mean, you're not a total loss."

"Thanks," he said wryly, grimacing and turning to stare out of his own window. "This coming from the little girl who insists on calling me stupid every few minutes."

"Well, you sure act like it, sometimes."

There was no arguing with the infuriating girl, and Gendry wasn't in the mood to prolong uselessness, so he gave up. Vying for a change in subject, he struck up with what else they'd brought up. "I never saw your father play, but I know he was one of the best. I've seen _some _footage later, but I doubt that compares to what it was like to see him play live."

"I never saw him, either," Arya replied. "He retired when I was little, before I can remember. I only have one memory of him at the ballpark. He..." She glanced at him, and he thought her cheeks might have coloring. He realized she had been about to share a treasured memory, and found himself wishing that she hadn't stopped before doing so. He had wanted her to share that part of herself with him.

_Why? _He blinked, having absolutely no idea, and looked away before she could make fun of him for his crinkling brow.

"You said you had no family."

He turned back to her, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't say that."

"You implied it," she replied, and he raised the other eyebrow. "I asked you that day in the shop if baseball was big in your family, and you avoided the question. The way you scrunched up your face wasn't like when you usually think. It was sadder than that."

Gendry fought hard to make his face blank, to give no outward sign that she was right. He crossed his arms before realizing it was making him look defensive, and then uncrossed them quickly. Arya clearly noticed, and he tried glaring at her to scare her off. He should have known better than to think it would work, and turned to look back out the window. "No. I don't have any family."

She was silent for a moment. "What happened to them?"

"Who the fuck knows?" Gendry growled, leaning his head against the cold window. He could feel his previously high mood collapsing. His tongue was working, even if his brain wasn't telling it to keep going. "She died before I can remember. I never knew my father. Nothing."

"Where did you go?"

"They left me on the steps of an orphanage with only my name," he replied. Glancing over at her, he wondered why he was telling her this. Her window was cracked, a sifting spring breeze ruffling her hair, sending a few strands spinning before her eyes. She made no move to brush them out of the way; she was staring at him, her brow crinkled and her face set in... _sympathy._ "No one ever came to find me. No one wrote. No one looked for me."

"Did you look for them?"

He scoffed. "How would I? They left me with nothing, no indication where they went. Maybe it was just my father and my mother, and they both died at the same time. Or maybe my father just couldn't stand me and left me there. I have no way of knowing."

"Your name. You could track them by your name."

"My name?" he repeated blandly. "I gave myself my name when I was five. I didn't have a name before that. They left me _nothing_."

Arya did not reply to that, and he turned away again. There were not many things that truly made him angry, and she had no way of knowing it, but the futility of him and his family was one of them. Some days it didn't bother him that he didn't know where he'd come from, but most of the time it was a knot biting into his side that he preferred to run away from rather than confront. He certainly wasn't used to having to explain it to strangers, and his usual tactic of throwing an annoyed punch whenever the asshole on the other end didn't know how to shut up didn't exactly seem practical or plausible in the situation. Besides, Arya wasn't making him angry, per se... she was actually making him think about his feelings of loss and abandonment, which translated more to a twinge of loneliness and grief.

"Sorry," Arya mumbled after several moments of silence. He glanced at her in surprise, but she was looking out her window, as well, and he almost didn't believe she'd spoken.

"Why?"

She turned her face back to him and he caught a glint of a glare. "Just because. Because you needed someone to tell you they were sorry. Just accept it."

"Don't apologize for something that's not your fault," he said.

"I will if I want to."

He shook his head at her, bewildered and tired. "You're impossible."

"You're stupid. Why Waters?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said you chose your own name when you were five," Arya recalled, watching him again from the other side of the taxi. "If you could have chosen anything for your name, why did you choose Waters?"

Gendry considered it for a moment. It was a question—surprisingly enough—that he had never been forced to answer before. "I think, when I was that age, I was still dealing with being alone and on my own. Maybe I still had a dream where my parents would show up one day and tell me it was all a big mistake and then they'd whisk me off to a big house with a dog and everything. And when I thought about love, I thought about all the waterways in the city running to a single source, and all the rivers in the world running to bigger rivers, which led to lakes and on until they reached the ocean. So all the water in the world was really one big source, one big family." He glanced at her and scowled as she ineffectively hid a smirk behind her hand. "I was five, okay? It's not funny. Stop laughing at me."

"I'm not laughing 'cause it's funny," Arya replied, still hiding. "I'm laughing because that's cute. You know, for a five-year-old."

He grunted. "Great. 'Cute'. Just what I need to be considered as. Don't tell anyone that story, okay? That was kind of personal."

"I won't tell your secret." Her voice seemed to sober slightly, but her grin remained. "I have secrets, too, that I wouldn't want you to share."

Gendry clucked his tongue and glanced over at her. She was still watching him, her lips pressed together in a way that he would almost could have considered attractive. It struck him how much she looked like her father, if not in outward features then in the hard line of her jaw and the cool gaze of her eyes. But there were differences, too; her cheeks were softer, smoother, and her hair had a supple, less steely, more threadlike tilt to it. She was young; he'd noticed it before, of course, but there was also an attitude that made her seem older even while she was acting younger. He remembered the way her eyes would light with fury and her expression would bunch with distaste whenever he said something antagonizing and grinned.

She noticed his attention, and frowned at him. "What are you smiling at?"

"Nothing," he replied, covering himself. "I was just thinking that you should tell me a secret, too, since I told you one of mine."

"What are we, twelve?" she retorted. "Like hell."

"You owe it to me."

"I'm taking you to buy a cell phone," Arya snapped. "Debt paid. Plus, you're welcome for this whole thing in the first place. I could as easily have decided you were worthless and left you to rot in your auto shop for a while."

"But you didn't," he said, and all of a sudden he was curious. She had no reason to help him. If he could help her father's team, of course, he knew she loved baseball enough that she would do it upon that basis alone, but that didn't quite fit it. What else did she get out of it? "Why?"

"I don't know." She seemed to think for a moment, biting her lip again. She glanced at him, and seemed to be weighing something in her mind.

"You don't have to tell me. I guess."

She hesitated again, and then sighed. "It _was _half because I thought what I saw—what you threw in that construction site—was really good. The other half was me scouting a prospect. If my dad gives me credit for it officially when—if—you make a name for yourself, I can list it on a résumé. I intend to badger him until he acknowledges that I got you to sign."

_On a résumé. _"You want to be a scout?"

Arya nodded expressionlessly.

"You really like baseball, don't you?"

She glared at him. "Don't you?"

"It's my life," he replied honestly, looking across at her. "It's all I think about. It's in the air I breathe. I don't know if I could get through a day of my life if there wasn't a promise of baseball somewhere in my future."

Her eyes seemed to stare through him for a moment, and when she blinked and shifted again she still seemed not be entirely sure what she was looking at. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she murmured, "That's how I feel about it, too."

The look she gave him thereafter startled him, but he couldn't look away. He felt as though something passed between them in that moment, something deep and emotional and frightening, but there were no words he could have assigned the moment to make it express what he was really feeling. Even if there were words to describe it, he had no idea what they would have been. His mouth was suddenly dry, his tongue suddenly tied. Anything to say fled his mind, and he wanted more than anything to look away but was held captive by her stare, a thoughtless prisoner of the grey storm behind her eyes.

The taxi pulled into a parking lot, and the bump gave him the jolt he needed to tear himself away as Arya started and did the same thing.

They pulled up to the curb before an entrance to the mall. Gendry reached into his pocket from habit before realizing he was broke and then scurried out of the taxi quickly while Arya paid so he could have a moment of fresh air to himself. When the other door slammed and the taxi wheels screeched as the pulled away, he turned around to find her looking at him with a toned-down version of the same intense look as before.

She cleared her throat. "Um... shall we?"

Gendry nodded, and they stepped into the mall together. It was a bustling Saturday, starting to get busy as the day progressed. He was content to let Arya rush ahead and take the lead as she bee-lined for a cell phone kiosk. Her back wasn't so nearly as interesting to study as her front, but he still found himself taking unusual notice of her as they weaved their way through the crowds silently, almost tensely.

The next half hour was spent—on his part, at least—in considerable mental pain, as the technical wizard in charge of the kiosk blasted his mind with a billion pieces of useless information about phones that he'd never needed or cared about before. Arya thwacked him more than once on the arm, as well, for his "idiotic inadequacy", and by the time she had sighed half a million times and shoved him out of the way to choose a selection for him he was one part amused, two parts irritated and three parts exhausted. He tried to pay for that, too, as he hadn't signed the contract Ned Stark had insisted the cell phone be a part of, but Arya only insulted him again and handed over her credit card for the transaction, promising her father would reimburse her.

"I don't like this," he confessed to her only five minutes later, as he sent his first ever text message to her as a test. "It's like a fake conversation. I never understand people and their connections to these things."

"You'd best get used to it," she retorted, flashing him a return message quicker than a major league fastball. "The most important calls of your life are about to come through that thing."

"Yeah, calls," he said. "Not text messages. I can do calls. I've used my boss's cell to make calls before, but I hate this text message thing."

She shook her head at him as though addressing a child. "You're so... different." He opened his mouth to make a harsh retort, hopefully improvising enough to make it marginally insulting, but she held up a hand before he could. "For once, that wasn't supposed to hurt. That was just an observation."

Gendry glared at her and grunted. "Where I come from, everyone is different, except when we're the same." She glanced at him confusedly, and he just shook his head. "You'd have to come from where I come from to understand."

"Try me."

"I don't think you'd get it," he said, and she looked at him as if he'd just called her a very bad thing. He held up his hands, fist closing around the cell phone, and relented grudgingly. "Fine. In the orphanage, we were tall, short, fat, skinny, all those things, and we all basically didn't want to be there for some reason or another. That was sort of the thing that held us all together, though, because even though there were reasons for us to hate each other we were sort of stuck, and we relied on each other to keep sane and survive. I don't know if that makes sense."

"It does to me," she answered after a moment, glancing at him thoughtfully.

"I was still kind of a misfit," he added, not quite knowing why. "I was big for my age, but I was always trying to pick fights with the older kids, and a lot of the time they beat my ass. I never learned, though, and that might have got me killed one day, being an orphan on the streets of King's Landing who didn't have many friends. Then I found baseball, and everything kind of just slid into place in my life after that. Everything started to be calmer."

He remembered those days, right after he found his first mitt, when he began to strike up some of his first friendships with the other kids in the orphanage who liked to play baseball. They had mostly taught each other how to play, he remembered, and so they were all pretty bad in the beginning. Over time, though, they actually started to figure it out. Their throws started to go where they were supposed to, their makeshift bats started hitting their baseballs farther, and their pitching started to be half-decent. As he began to enter his adolescent years, Gendry had noticed that he could throw harder than most of the others his age—considerably harder. It had never amounted to much, of course, except for an added advantage on the playground...

Until now.

He blinked and returned to the present, and realized when he glanced at Arya's smirk that his face had been scrunched up in memory. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up."

The smirk remained, but he thought it lost just a touch of its mockery in favor of indifferent amusement. He watched her glance about the crowded mall for a moment as the busy day mulled around them. She turned back to him gingerly. "Do you wanna get an ice cream?"

"Ice cream?" he repeated. He glanced down at his brand new cell phone for the purpose of checking the time. "We just ate a hour and a half ago. How can you be hungry?"

"I'm not hungry. I just want an ice cream. Do you want to get one with me?"

He looked her up and down surreptitiously. It was a remarkable feeling that he wasn't sure how to address, but he found that he was enjoying the simple act of spending time away from his work, his apartment, and baseball. If that wasn't enough in itself, he had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't have been enjoying it if he was with someone else.

"Sure, I guess I'll get one with you," he heard himself saying, and even after he'd recovered and she'd beamed at him he found that he would have said the same thing anyway.

As she switched direction and led him toward the food court, Gendry tried to examine the strange realization he'd made a moment before. This feisty little—rich—college girl was badgering him constantly about almost everything he did, bantering when he returned it, hitting him when he scored points, and he found that it was this unique stubbornness that was captivating his attention in a way usually only baseball could. The strange feeling of comfort and fun he was having in her presence made him suddenly glad he didn't have to find some excuse to spend more time with her; it was happening naturally as it was, which he was grateful for.

They ordered some cheap cones from a random stand and then sat down at a small two-person table in food court, normal people mingling with a normal crowd on a normal day. She'd paid without comment, which had relieved and surprised him, but she hadn't even seemed to notice as she handed over her credit card to purchase both of their cones. He reasoned that it didn't matter to her spending that little money when she was used to a lot more, but he kept that point to himself, considering that he could count the previous times he'd been inside a mall on one hand and he didn't want to spoil this trip.

"You grew up in Winterfell?" he prompted after a few moments, watching the crowd around him as he spoke.

"Yeah," she answered. "In Stark Manor. My dad never really flaunted his money the way some athletes do, but with such a big family he decided to buy a larger house."

"Your family is big?"

Her eyes narrowed at him as she licked at the crest of her chocolate ice cream. Nevertheless, she answered him. "Yeah. There are six of us children. I'm the third youngest. Sansa and I are the only daughters."

"Your parents have six children?" he verified amazedly, shaking his head. "That's a lot. Four sons."

She bit her lower lip; her upper one was covered in a shallow coat of chocolate, and he had to bite his own lip not to laugh as he watched it. "Actually... well, it's a little complicated." She took another bite of ice cream, and only continued at his question look. "My father has four sons, but only three of them are my mother's."

"So you have one half-brother."

Arya glanced at him almost diffidently from the corner of her eye. "It's a sensitive family topic."

Gendry spread his arms across the table, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand as he did so. "I won't tell anyone. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, of course."

"I know," she replied, and then shrugged herself, looking at her ice cream. "Robb and Jon were born at pretty much the same times. My dad... had an affair when his marriage was young, and Jon is a result of that affair."

He felt his eyebrows go up. "You have a brother from an _affair_ of your father's? And he's one of the oldest of your siblings?"

"Yeah," Arya said sheepishly. "This is why it's a sensitive family topic. Everyone thinks that my mom should have left my dad when it happened, but she didn't. She loved him, and she trusted him, and she stayed with him. And I don't know what he did then, but I know that right now, today, my father would never, ever do anything like that to my mom. They love each other."

Gendry looked at his own cone. "Just because you love someone doesn't mean they don't leave," he whispered before he could stop himself. Quickly, before she could address what he had said, he continued, "Well, that isn't something everyone would do, but if your parents are happy I guess it worked for them. Does he get along with your other siblings?"

She smiled at him, and he was very glad he had said whatever he had to make her do so. "We all love Jon... except maybe Mom, but I guess that's understandable. He understands me more than any of my other siblings. Robb was practically his best friend when they were growing up. You can tell he's not Mother'sbecause all the rest of us look more like Mom... except for me. I look like my father. But Jon has what Dad says is the real look of a Stark, dark and cold and wintry. All the others have reddish-brown hair and really smooth features. Everyone says Sansa is the most beautiful girl in Westeros, and even Rickon's got the mature Tully look to him, and he's only twelve."

He watched her lips as she spoke of her family, and caught an uncouth aroma of jealousy in his thoughts. "You love your family. I think that's really special. Even your brother who's not really part of the family like he could be."

"Of course I love them," she told Gendry, looking at him as though he were stupid. "We're all Starks, and we're all part of the same pack."

A moment late, Arya's face contorted as she realized why he had been commenting about their familial affection. He didn't want her to dwell on it, however; it would spark a conversation meant to make him feel better about not having a family, and that was the _last _thing he wanted: pity and sympathy.

Quickly, he changed the subject, trying to twitch his mouth into a playful tease. "Do all the members of your family like baseball as much as you?"

Arya grinned back at him. "Yeah. You met Robb, he's a really cool big brother to have. Jon's the starting shortstop for the Night Watch—"

"Hold on," Gendry interrupted in disbelief, staring at her critically. He was sure he'd heard her correctly, but this was something he had not expected to hear. "You mean you have _two _brothers who play professional baseball?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "I understand if you didn't know... Jon carries the last name Snow. Please don't ask, it's a long story, but the two brothers I have in the majors are Robb Stark and Jon Snow, yeah."

"Wow," he said, his voice nearly as amazed as he felt. "Your father must be very proud. Two sons in the major leagues, and his own career to boot. Must make things awkward in the house when they play each other, though, with everyone now knowing who to root for"

"My father and his two brothers all played in the majors," Arya replied, shrugging. "I guess it kind of runs in the family. And Sansa's engaged to one of the Monarchs, actually, even though he's a little shit who no one in my family likes, and my other brothers—"

She stopped so abruptly Gendry thought she might have simply vanished into thin air. Half-preoccupied with biting through his cone, he glanced up through his chews to make sure she was still there. He was relieved to find that she was, but she was staring off into space with a pale face, as if she'd just realized she was telling him something that she shouldn't have been. It worried him; his first impulse told him it was his fault. He'd said something he shouldn't have, forced something out of her he shouldn't have, asked for the answer to a question he didn't need to know and she didn't want to tell him. Unfortunately, he had absolutely no clue what that might have been.

Before he could ask what was wrong or think of anything to say, she began to vigorously eat her ice cream again as if nothing was wrong. "Actually, baseball's not as big in my family as you'd think. But me and my dad and my older brothers love it."

The absence of the mention of her sister and younger brothers was not lost on Gendry, but she had switched gears so quickly he felt as though he shouldn't push it. The curiosity spike inside of him was barely repressible, but his interest in prolonging their... interaction... kept him silent. "Oh, well, that's too bad. I think I like your brother. I'd probably like Jon, too."

She looked up at him, froze for another instant, and then stood without further warning. "Are you ready to go?"

_Way to go, Gendry_. He sighed silently, hoping she didn't notice his discomfort. Whatever he'd done to make her uncomfortable, he wished more than anything that he could know what it was so he could, if not take it back, at least apologize for it.

He rose with her, finishing his cone at that precise moment. After swallowing, he merely nodded. "Sure."

Whatever had happened, she seemed in quite the hurry to suddenly be gone from the mall. She led him wordlessly throughout the crowds until they emerged from the mall onto another curb. Without speaking to him, she quickly summoned another taxi and climbed in, making it clear he was to do so, as well. He cursed himself again, but also began to grow a little irritated with her. If she was going to up and sprint away from him, the least she could do was tell him why she was doing it, or why she suddenly found him hideous.

He stared out of the window with crossed arms as they rolled once more through the streets of King's Landing. Arya had told the driver their destination before he'd had a chance to climb into the taxi, but from the buildings they passed he could tell they were driving back to his run-down apartment. She didn't speak to him, and so he didn't feel the sudden need to speak to her, not while she seemed to want nothing more than to get away from him. There were a few times where he thought her very dim reflection in his window may have turned to look at him, but he refused to return the interest. He wondered if she'd changed her mind about him, and decided she shouldn't have given him the connection she had. The thought made his mood darken, and before they were even halfway back to his apartment he'd put himself into a very disheartening, angry mood.

The taxi pulled up some time later to his apartment, and Gendry finally glanced over at Arya to say goodbye. She wasn't even looking at him. He seethed, but reminded himself that him going ballistic in any form was not going to help. "Thanks, then. For the ice cream and… yeah. I'll see you around, I guess."

"I'll give your number to my father," she said, still not looking at him, "and he'll contact you about that contract, probably within the next couple of days, arrange to meet you and everything."

He nodded, opening his door. "Sounds good."

Stepping onto the curb, he shoved his door closed and stuck his hands in his pockets as he began to strut towards his front door. The rest of his day looked bleak, but for once his life was looking up, and he was suddenly determined not to let even his sour mood ruin it.

"Gendry!"

Gendry paused with his foot on the first step up to the apartment complex and turned back. Arya had emerged on her side of the taxi, looking over the top of the yellow vehicle at him in slight trepidation. "Yeah?"

She said nothing for a long moment, and did a very good job of once more appearing as though she didn't know what she was trying to say. He dug his hands deeper into his pocket in annoyance, until she finally seemed to shrug to herself. A genuine, kind smile blossomed on her face, albeit small, and it was meant only for him. "Good luck."

At a loss for anything else to do, he nodded. She paused a moment longer before climbing back into the taxi, and the vehicle pulled away from his curb and rolled out down the street of Flea Bottom. Gendry watched it go, his sourness dissipating in wake of the last moment between the two of them, he and Arya. He wasn't sure what to think about her; the annoyance he had felt in the taxi only barely overcame the pleasure he had found in her company. Only just.

He stood on the top doorstep, again, for the second time in as many days as the taxi drove out of sight in the distance. Less than a second after he lost sight of it, he realized his bike was still chained to a post outside of the Dragonpit.

* * *

Ned Stark called Gendry the very next day to tell him his contract had been drawn up. They made arrangements to meet again on Monday for him to sign it, after which Gendry would immediately be flown to Blackhaven for his first professional assignment. Only moments after hanging up, the first waves of excitement and anxiety rushed through him, as he realized what his future held for him. He almost called the number Arya had given him—almost—to tell her how ecstatic he was, but the confusion he still had over the latter part of her interaction with him the previous day held him back.

Instead, he called Mott and informed the old mechanic that he was quitting. Mott didn't seem too put out, which surprised him, only asking him the reason why he was doing it. Gendry didn't see what purpose a lie could serve, and so he told Mott the truth, expecting the mechanic not to believe him. He was right; Mott had a good three-minute laugh before telling him he was a fool and hanging up promptly.

His only other business was informing his landlord he was moving out. He paid March's rent in-full, considering that he would have a very large amount of cash available in the next day anyway, and let the older man know he would be moving out the next day. His possessions took only an hour and only his lone suitcase and a cardboard box to fill. He slept Sunday night on a bare mattress, excited enough only to catch a few hours, yet rising in the morning with a strange and rare sense of energy.

Gendry had declined the taxi Ned Stark had offered to send for him, instead riding the bike he'd been forced to retrieve by foot on Saturday to Ned's chosen meeting ground, a downtown office building where he'd been told the Direwolves' owner would meet him.

Ned, to his credit, did not comment as Gendry rolled up on the bicycle, wearing the best clothes he owned—which weren't that good at all—and having scrubbed as much grease and dirt from his body as possible. They shook hands and then Ned led him into the office building, down a number of hallways, up an elevator and into what appeared to be a conference room, where a man who had the pristine appearance of a lawyer was waiting with a large piece of paper on the table. Arya was not there; he hadn't really expected her to be, but he found that he had been hoping she would be.

He didn't know what he'd been expecting the contract to look like, but the arrangement that was laid out before him seemed much more formal and stuffy than he'd ever imagined it to be. Ned and the lawyer waited patiently while he sat down before it and read every word of it, as he figured would be wise to do. He couldn't help but smile when he reached the inclusion of a cell phone in the contract, just as Ned had promised, and again when his eyes slid over the monetary amounts due to him within the terms of the contract. Only the signing bonus was guaranteed money, but even if he was released the moment after he finished his signature that would still be enough to get him through _years_ of the existence he was currently living.

Once finished reading, he nodded to the lawyer, who produced a pen, and then he signed his name where he was prompted to, the large, blocky letters he'd always used filling out a crudely cursive "Gendry Waters" legibly.

"There," Ned Stark said happily and a little proudly as Gendry stood to shake his hand. "Welcome to the Direwolves franchise, Gendry. We're very happy and lucky to have you."

"Thank you," Gendry replied, not being able to keep from grinning giddily himself.

The next morning, after selling his bike for a hundred dollars to a metal dealer, he checked his suitcase into baggage claim at the Conqueror Aegon International Airport in King's Landing, the contents of the cardboard box now stuffed into his newly-purchased carry-on duffel bag. The flight to Blackhaven left at approximately eleven o'clock, a small commercial jet on which Gendry was given an aisle seat next to an elderly gentlemen who promptly fell asleep as soon as he boarded.

Gendry was grateful for the old man's slumber, for, although he hid it, he suffered from a minor panic attack as the plane lifted off the ground. He would have denied it had anyone accused him of being afraid of flying, but in truth it was his first time flying ever, and so even the smooth takeoff the plane experienced made him uncomfortable. Once they were climbing high over the buildings of King's Landing, however, he was able to lean back in his seat and pretend for a while that he was simply on a bus, and after only a few minutes he was able to sit back and breathe normally and even enjoy a little bit of the view he got by looking across the sleeping man.

It was a short hour. The plane didn't spend very long at its peak altitude before beginning a descent, and then the short, squat buildings of Blackhaven were rushing by beyond the windows as the jet carefully set down in Blackhaven's much smaller airport. He disembarked and followed signs to the baggage claim, picking up his suitcase and then heading outside of the terminal. He climbed into a taxi as Ned Stark instructed him and then asked the driver to take him directly to the stadium of the Blackhaven Thunder.

The drive was very short; Blackhaven was tiny compared with King's Landing, and the stadium was nothing special, little more than a low-budget college field surrounded by a fence. Gendry paid the taxi driver with what little cash he still had on his person and then convinced a field worker passing by to let him through a gate.

It wasn't his destination, but Gendry couldn't help but walk up the brief ramp from the open-air concourse to the field. It panned out before him as he emerged from the tunnel, and he smiled again. The grass was freshly-cut, the dirt dragged but not yet lined, the warning track wide and loose. It didn't compare to the Dragonpit in quality, but he was still overjoyed that he was there.

_ This is my field_, he realized as his eyes swept over it. _I'm playing on this field. I'm going to be a member of this team._

It was almost comical enough to make him laugh. He had to spend the entire time he walked away from the field and searched for the team complex convincing him he wasn't being lured into some complex trick.

The average-sized building that held the team facilities stood a little ways off from the field, behind the stands, and Gendry entered the unlocked front door easily. He followed signs and noises down the hall, past the fitness room where only a few people were lazily lifting weights and the showers, until he finally came to the office he'd been looking for. Poking his head through the door, he rapped a knuckle against the wood to announce his presence.

The office was small, holding just enough room for a desk, two chairs, a laptop, and a wide variety of charts and stat sheets posted over practically every inch of wall; even some of the dim window was covered. The gruff man behind the desk looked up at the knock from where he'd been hunched over another spreadsheet scribbling with a pencil. Gendry was surprised; the man didn't look as he'd expected a manager to. He was young, perhaps only about forty, wearing sweatpants and a junky t-shirt. His hands and arms were heavily scarred where Gendry could see, and he wore an eyepatch over his right eye.

"Hi," the man said gruffly, neither friendly nor unfriendly. He stood and rounded his desk as Gendry took a tentative step into the room. "You must be my new reliever. Luwin called down a few days ago and said I'd be getting you right after you signed a contract. That right?"

"Yes, sir," Gendry said, shaking hands with the man. "Gendry Waters."

"Nice to meet you, Gendry." The man gestured towards one of the chairs opposite the desk as he slid back into his own seat. "Beric Dondarrion. Welcome to the Thunder. Not much of a team, but maybe one day we'll produce at least one good player for the majors."

"I'm happy to be here, happy to be a member of the team."

Dondarrion looked at him appraisingly for a moment, and then crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "I'm going to try and be straight here, Gendry. You've never played before, have you?"

Gendry sat up straight in his chair. "I've played, sir, just not in an official situation. I've played baseball since I was a little kid, though."

"But not in an official situation." Gendry nodded, and Beric returned it. "I was, honestly, shocked to hear that Ned Stark was signing a kid who'd never played before, I won't lie to you. I hope you understand that I've got a lot of people on this team that are vying for their chance, and, quite frankly, as of this moment they deserve it a lot more than you."

He could feel his eyebrows crinkling, and fought to keep the rush of anger from Dondarrion's comment off of his face. "I'm here to play ball, sir. I'm not here to take anybody's spot, but I think I have as much of a right to get my shot as they do."

"I'm not saying you don't," Dondarrion said. "I'm saying that I've got a lot of young bucks who the owner has big hopes for that need to get their playing time, and I've got a lot of old timers who have struggled down here for five, six, seven years who are still giving it everything they've got—guys I can't forget about. Then I've got you, a fresh face off of the streets who's never played before. How is that going to look to the other guys?"

Gendry bristled again, but managed to keep his emotions in check. "If it's politics you're interested in playing, sir, I can just show you what I can do and settle the matter."

Dondarrion rubbed a hand at his face. "I think you're misunderstanding me, Gendry. What I'm trying to say is, you're young, you must have an amazing arm to have attracted Ned Stark's attention, and if he went out of his way to sign you himself then, realistically, you may very well have a very good shot at this. I'm going to try and get you your innings, I'm going to let you show me what you can do. But I've also got a dozen other relievers who have been here longer than you and may have more at stake than you. They need their innings, too. I need you to understand that just because you've walked in here without any prior experience or spring training or anything, it doesn't mean I'm going to drop everything with this team to trampoline you to the major leagues. What I will do is give you the chance when I can that you can take and use to succeed. Is that fair enough?"

_Others having more at stake than me. I don't think I can believe that_. But for the rest of what Dondarrion said, Gendry could see the logic behind it, thankfully. He wasn't going to be treated as a special case, but that was perfectly fine with him; he didn't want to be singled out, favored, or babied. He was there to pitch, and he didn't want to make his name in baseball, whatever it would turn out to be, by playing favorites.

"Yes, sir," he replied. "What can I do? How can I prepare?"

Dondarrion watched him for a moment. "The season starts tomorrow. Summerhall will be in for a three-game series. I don't think I'll be pitching you at all in that series. I want you to work with the pitching coach, listen to him, show him what you've got, learn from him. Also, it'll give you a chance to meet the team. After you've gotten a chance to acclimate to your environment, then we'll see what you've got. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, sir." He hated waiting, and it sounded like these three games were going to be him waiting, watching others play baseball, itching to get out there and throw. Then again, if it was what it took to do this, then he would toughen his hide and weather it. Arya had called him a stubborn bull, and he was damned if he'd let a simple thing like watching and learning for a few days ruin him.

"All right, then," Dondarrion said, slapping his thighs. He swung his arms around his head, gesturing around his office. Gendry realized he was encompassing the team facilities and stadium, as well. "It's not much, lad, but every great starts somewhere."

_That they do_, Gendry thought, ignoring the ache in his elbow. _And I start now_.


	6. Chapter 5

**5**

Not many things Arya had done in her life seemed comparable to going to a major league baseball game with her sister. It was straight-forward strange, for one thing, as usually she and her sister had little enough in common to get them into the same room together without one of them tearing the other's hair out. For another, her sister usually took an objective view on the game that Arya had never been too fond of; she much preferred voicing exactly how she felt about what was happening on the diamond, be it jeering at the opposition, cussing out umpires, or screaming at her favored team's players, whereas Sansa tended to sit quietly with her hands folded in her lap and comment distantly about whatever was happening. In Arya's opinion, such an act was kin to blasphemy, as if a baseball game was a piece of data her sister was analyzing instead of a masterpiece she herself was treasuring. Passion was the whole purpose behind baseball, after all.

That being said, Arya willingly stepped into the private box of the Dragonpit by her sister's side. It had been a last-minute invitation and she would never turn down an invitation to a baseball game—unless, of course, someone with the last name of Lannister was the one proffering—but even so their awkward if slightly meaningful departure from the family lunch a week earlier had left her yearning for some kind of relationship with her sister. She only had one, and while she had no qualms with befriending men and her brothers even she could only stand them for so long.

"Do you always use this when you come to these games?" she asked Sansa in disbelief as the box's door closed behind her. An empty and very plush room, equipped with a bar and a few flat screen TVs, panned out before them. The Stark luxury box in Winterfell was nice, but it was nothing compared to what she stood in now. She felt as though a pompous king was about to walk through the glass panels that kept them from their cushioned chairs overlooking the field of play.

"No," Sansa answered nonchalantly. "Usually only if Cersei comes to the games do I attend with her. Otherwise, I just use a regular ticket and drag one of my friends along with me. Jeyne hates baseball, but she'll be a good sport and come most times."

"If you sold this thing for one game you could buy a house," Arya remarked. "Freaking Lannisters. It makes me feel unclean just being here."

"It's actually Joffrey's father's box," Sansa answered quietly, and Arya immediately fell silent.

The news of Robert Baratheon's accident had spread throughout major league baseball within a few days, as his condition stabilized and then abruptly deteriorated. Poor health was being cited, and the doctors were no longer confident he would recover. Or survive. Arya was insufferable, but even she didn't like to speak ill of one so near death's door.

Sansa dropped her purse on one of the couches while Arya walked to the panels and looked out onto the field. A number of players from both teams were finishing their stretches down each foul line. The game would begin in only about twenty minutes, closer to gametime than Arya would have liked to arrive, but acceptable considering that Sansa was probably earlier than she had ever been in her life. She tried to spy Jon amongst the opposing team's players, but couldn't make him out on the far line.

The Night Watch were in town for a three-game series, the Monarchs' second of the new season, and Arya had leaped at the chance to see Jon play. It had been over a year since she'd last seen him, and she missed him. He understood her in a way Robb never did, knew what to say to make her feel better almost as well as Bran did, and could console her with an adapted grace Sansa had never been able to manage. Best of all, of all her siblings, even Robb, she thought that Jon was the only one who may have loved baseball more than her. Watching him on TV wasn't the same; she was overjoyed when Sansa offered her the chance to watch their brother play.

She turned back to her sister and glanced around the stuffy pillow they had walked into. "I'm actually glad our box at Winterfell isn't like this. I think if I tried to watch more than a few games from in here it would completely ruin the sport for me. It's like looking down at peasants from up here."

"It's not so bad," Sansa said non-confrontationally . "Would you like something to drink?"

"Got a beer in there?"

Sansa glared at her. "You're only nineteen, Arya."

"You didn't ask me about my age, you asked me what I wanted to drink..."

Arya could've almost laughed at the half-scowl, half-grimace her sister sent her way as the older woman crossed to the box's mini-fridge—something that did not belong anywhere near a ballpark—and then handed her a soda.

They strode through the glass panel divider and sat in the overly comfortable chairs, watching the players finish their warm-up and walk back to the dugout. Arya watched Sansa sweep her eyes over the field, noticing her distant gaze. Sansa had always been somewhat of the outlier of the Stark family, appreciating the fame more than the legacy, but Arya knew her sister's life revolved as much around baseball as the rest of theirs, if in a different category.

"How is school?" Sansa asked, breaking her from her reminiscence.

"Horrible," Arya replied. "Boring. Exhausting. I can't wait for finals to be over with so I can get out of this town."

"You didn't like your first year?"

Arya shrugged. "I liked it well enough, but I miss Winterfell, and school's really been piling up on me lately. It'll be good to get out of King's Landing for a while, get back to some regular baseball."

A silence fell over them. After a time, Sansa glanced over at her sister and held eye contact for a long time before speaking. "Why do you think our lives revolve so much around this game? Why do you think we Starks can't get away?"

"Do you have to ask that?" Arya replied, scoffing. "Our father and uncles went professional. Our brothers are professional. I sure as hell would be, too, if I'd been born a boy."

"Why would you ever want that? Men are so... infuriating. And idiotic." Sansa shook her head in obvious disgust, wringing her hands as though they were wet with something distasteful. "I would never want to be a man, even if it meant never having cramps. I suppose they're mighty fine to look at sometimes, though."

"Depends who you're looking at," Arya snapped. "Like, say, your ugly fiancé. I could go a few lifetimes happily if I never had to look at him." _But, say... Gendry. I guess I don't mind looking at Gendry. He's not the ugliest creature known to mankind. And he certainly fits the description as infuriating and idiotic._

Sansa looked at her, but let the backhand about Joffrey slide without comment. Arya pounced on the indication that something was unwell instantly, but her sister responded before she had a chance to inquire. "Just because our family is professional, though, doesn't mean we should go crazy. I met another girl my year at the university, Margaery Tyrell, whose brother plays for Highgarden, and she hates baseball. Although, I have to say, she'd probably be a much better player than I."

"Maybe Tyrell blood isn't like Stark blood. I honestly think you'd have to kill one of us before we stopped loving it. Why do you ask, anyway?"

Sansa hesitated for a long moment. "I came here for the opening day game with Cersei and some of her friends. Robert... he was in the hospital. Cersei just doesn't seem to care, and I feel awful for him for that, even if I've never really liked Robert—his wife should still be there for him. But we came to the game and it was like I was the only one who was actually watching it. Cersei badmouthed the umpires a deal when Joffrey struck out, but that was pretty much the only time she took her eyes off of the other smiling ninnies that were here with us."

"And that surprised you, that you were the only one interested?"

Her sister shrugged. "I guess. The Lannisters are another baseball family, and Cersei is a Lannister and a Baratheon. She must not have the natural love that we have. I know I don't always show it or care about it, but I watch it just like the rest of you and I still can't get away from it."

"Your own fault," Arya replied. "Marrying a slimy fuck. Look, I'm sorry, but I'll never be able to socialize with him when the family gets together, Sansa, or even speak with him, or even look at him without getting a supreme urge to kill him. That's how it is. It's not going to change."

She braced herself for the inevitable and fruitless defense Sansa would put up for Joffrey, as he always did. The second pause stretched into a moment, and when Arya glanced over she found that her auburn-haired sister was purse-lipped and pale-faced, appearing much more uncomfortable than angry, something Arya had not expected.

They stood for the Westerosi national anthem as the players climbed out of their dugouts and removed their hats, and all throughout the singing Arya observed her sister, watching mixed expressions of discomfort cross her face instead of the usual defiance and frustration. The shift in the status quo of their discussion of Joffrey was so shocking that Arya was afraid her sister was sick. Or worse. When the anthem ended, and they sat down, Sansa's expressions didn't change, furthering incurring Arya's worry, and what was more, her sister kept her eyes far, far away where they couldn't reveal her emotions.

"Is everything okay, Sansa?" Arya questioned, leaning closer to her sister between their chairs. Sansa didn't seem to notice she'd asked a question. "Sansa. Westeros to Sansa!"

Her sister jumped, nearly losing the drink in her hand and looking around, startled. "Sorry. I didn't hear what you said."

Arya crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her sister, genuine concern settling in her chest. "What's up, Sansa?"

"Nothing," Sansa replied, in a way that almost convinced Arya. Almost. "I was thinking about the game, and then finals, and so on and so forth."

"Hmm. Yeah. Right. Bull shit. What's going on? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," she insisted, pointedly focusing her attention on the diamond as the Monarchs took the field for the start of the game. "I know I'm not as good at analyzing skill as you or Father, but this Osmund Kettleback they've got on the mound today seems to have been drudged up from nothing—"

"You can't even try and change the subject more obviously," Arya growled. "Sansa, tell me what the hell is wrong or I might just throw you out of this box. Come on, I want to help. Tell me what is bothering you."

Her sister did everything possible to avoid her gaze. "It's nothing."

"It's obviously not nothing," she scoffed. "Please, Sansa. I'm your sister."

Sansa sighed, and glanced down at her hands in her lap, looking absolutely miserable. Arya knew she had cracked, and waited patiently—far more patiently than she ever could normally—for Sansa to build herself up enough to speak. "The other night, not opening day but the second game, they beat the Oldtown Wizards, right? Except Joff struck out three times that night. He didn't come home until around two in the morning, and he was really drunk."

Arya saw where the story was going from a mile away, and her fists curled involuntarily. "He didn't... I swear, I'll kill that fucker."

Sansa glanced at her sister and shook her head. "It wasn't bad. Partially my fault. I just kept at him, trying to make him feel better when he told me to leave him alone. It was just a backhand, nothing more than that."

"He hit you!" Arya roared. A few people from surrounding boxes or stands below them actually turned to see what the commotion was, and she lowered her voice. "He fucking hit you, Sansa! That's domestic assault, he should be in jail for that!"

"He didn't mean to," Sansa insisted. "He was drunk, he wasn't him. I don't even think he remembered it in the morning."

"All the worse!" she cried. "Sansa... that's... you have to get out of there. This is exactly what I was afraid. And Dad, too, even though he's too good-natured and hopeful to ever say a damn thing."

"No. It was just one thing, it won't happen again. He passed out right afterwards and when he woke up he was fine. It was no big deal. He put the ball in play the next game and went out with some of the team. The Hound dumped him back yesterday around one and left."

Arya grunted and shook her head. "Listen to me. Any man who hits is not for you. If you think it was just a one-time thing, I'm telling you right now that you're wrong. This is who he is. I've seen it. Dad's seen it. Robb's seen it. Even Mom has, I think, she's just too stubborn and well-wishing to say a goddamn thing about it. You just wait 'til I tell her about this, though, she'll—"

"Don't!" Sansa exclaimed, whirling on her sister with wide eyes. "Don't, please, don't tell Mom. Anything but that."

"Now I know I should," Arya retorted.

"Please don't, Arya, please don't," Sansa pleaded, gripping the arms of her chair with white knuckles. "It's a tough time for Joffrey, that's all. He's slumping, his father's in the hospital and quite possibly going to die, and his mother's been pestering him about the wedding."

"He yells at you. He's hit you. That's two forms of abuse, Sansa, two! Do not sit there and tell me that's acceptable, because I'll kick your ass and then go and kill him if you do. You have to leave him, right now."

"I won't do that," Sansa said weakly.

"Why the _fuck _not? You have _every _reason to! I will _make _you!"

"No, Arya," she groaned. "I won't. I can't. I need him."

"He fucking _hit you_!"

"Once," Sansa said quietly. "He was drunk. He didn't know what he was doing. I was bothering him. He didn't mean to hurt me, and that's never happened before. It won't ever happen again. Most of the time he's sweet and caring and he can make me laugh."

Arya bristled, her fingernails digging into her palms. "That doesn't excuse the fact that he abuses you! Repeatedly, now. It doesn't matter that he makes you feel happy _some_times. He doesn't make you feel happy _all _of the time, and he is an abusive son of a bitch that deserves to get shot. It's not safe for you, Sansa."

"He does make me feel safe. And loved."

"Well, then, god damn it, you deserve more than that!" _Why is she doing this? Why is she being so gods damned stubborn?_ "Sansa... I can't even tell you how angry I am. This is what I've seen coming every since you started dating that prick, and now that it's happened I can't believe you're not walking up right here and now."

"I love him, Arya," Sans replied. "I'm sorry, you just don't understand. You've never been with someone like I've been with him."

Arya turned back to the game, her mind throbbing with fury, angry enough to explode. She was surprised the find the Monarchs already jogging off of the field, the first inning halfway over without her having noticed even a single pitch. She imagined the second baseman tripping and breaking his neck on the way into the dugout, but the thought only made her feel marginally better.

"If I did have a relationship like that," she finally said to her sister, "I would certainly not have it with someone like that, damn it. If he ever hit me I would fucking hit him back. Hard."

"It doesn't work like that," Sansa said. "It's complicated. And I don't want to hurt him, either. Besides, if I did, Cersei would press charges on me."

"That bitch," Arya swore. She sighed, and rubbed at her face, before swearing vividly again. "Damn you, Sansa. Sometimes you make me want to hate you. I'm trying to help, you know. I don't want to see him hurt you."

"He won't," Sansa said unconvincingly. "I promise. If it makes you feel better, I swear I won't put up with it if he ever does again."

Arya had to struggle not to snort at her choice of words. 'Put up with it' had a very broad definition depending on the context, and she was skeptical that her sister would put one on it that she approved of should her sister be hit in this vulnerable place again. She sighed, glaring at the game, bitterly realizing she'd missed Jon's first at-bat and glaring at him hurling warm-up tosses from shortstop.

"I don't understand," she murmured, loud enough so her voice carried to the other chair. "I've never even met someone that I've wanted to be with for more than a few kisses or party make-out session. What about him that could make you stay with such a little piece of shit..."

"He's really not like that. He can say the nicest things, and when he's quiet he can just say words that make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world." Sansa stirred and glanced over at her. "Isn't that what every woman wants? A man to protect her and make her feel special?"

"I can't believe you just said that," Arya retorted, glaring at her sister. "That just... you just made women sound like some weak thing that always needs a man to survive and provide for her."

Sansa had the decency in her frustrated state to look sheepish. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant that every woman wants someone strong who they can lean against every now and again when the goings get tough. Don't you want someone like that, someone who will wrap you up and protect you and love you when you're at your most vulnerable?"

For a moment, Arya considered her most vulnerable moments. The first thing that came to mind, indeed the only thing, was the moment in the mall a few days past with Gendry, when he'd somehow persuaded her to open up about her family. Perhaps not in the context that Sansa meant it, Gendry had made her feel safe; she had trusted him, something not many people could honestly claim. Enough for her to open up to him, if only for a few moments.

Unbidden, her mind drifted to his arms, thick arms corded with lean muscle. She wondered if she would feel safe in them. The thought was so unlike her and unwelcome that she actually glanced at Sansa to make sure her sister had not sensed a change in air pressure or some other such indication of her mental insanity. The scariest part was where she realized that her sister was right: she was curious because, on some level, she wanted arms around her, and she wanted them to make her feel safe. And at that moment she couldn't shake the image of Gendry from her mind.

"No," she finally lied, hoping Sansa hadn't noticed her unusually long pause. "I don't."

"Well, then, maybe that really makes you special," Sansa replied, without taking her eyes off of the game. Arya knew she wasn't really watching it; only using it as a background to her thoughts. Puzzling over any hidden meanings Sansa might have meant with her comment and still fuming over her sister's stupidity, she settled back into her seat with crossed arms and they watched the game silently for a time.

In the third, the Monarchs rallied. Jon nearly turned a spectacular double play at second but threw a step too late at first, and on the very next pitch Sandor Clegane, the monstrous, scarred leadoff hitter for King's Landing crushed a bomb into the upper deck in left field. Sansa clapped with the crowd while Arya grumbled about the Night Watch pitching, and with their bickering about the two teams they began to return to their normal sibling functionality. Joffrey struck out on three pitches, which brightened Arya's mood considerably as he flung his helmet away in disgust.

"Quite the charmer," she commented dryly in Sansa's direction. "Too bad he can't hit the ball like he hit your—"

"Arya!" Sansa cried. Arya was glad that elicited a reaction; she was trying to provoke her sister into being angry enough to do something. "That's fucking enough about it, okay? It's my life, and my business, and I would never have told you if I'd known you would bitch about it this much."

She opened her mouth to retaliate—as she would have done any of the week and thrice on Sundays—and then thought better of it. For once in her life, she was tired of arguing with Sansa. "I just care, actually, okay? It's a good thing _someone _cares about you."

There was no reply to that, either, and once more they lapsed into silence. Jon was having a tough day at the plate; all of the Watch was. Kettleback was proving to be the real deal, annoyingly, sitting member after member of Jon's team down, surrendering only a pair of hits and shutting them out as the game progressed into the later innings. The Monarchs continued their quiet dominance, as well, tacking on a run or two every other inning until the deficit was laughable, putting Arya in a sour mood that complemented Sansa's solemn one perfectly.

"Father flew back down a few days ago," Sansa commented around the seventh, when they walked back into the luxury box to order some food.

"I know," Arya replied. Her father had called to ask if she wanted to be there when Gendry was signed, and she had declined without giving a reason. For what reason she had actually declined, she wasn't sure she could say; at the time, the mere thought of being in the same room with him had been nerve-wracking. It must have been that moment of weakness, she decided, when he'd cracked through her armor without either of them realizing. She wasn't used to being uncomfortable around people... it made her rather more uncomfortable.

"Do you know what he was in for?" Sansa asked, startling her from her thoughts. "He told me he'd be in town for a few hours if I absolutely needed anything but otherwise he wouldn't have time to see us."

"He was signing a prospect," Arya replied.

"Oh, really?" Sansa responded, nodding. "Exciting. Was it a big name?"

_Not like you would know it if it was. And it certainly isn't. Just a very talented nobody, and he was _my _find. _"No, it wasn't, but he's really excited about this one." _So am I._

"You know something about him?"

She shook her head, nonchalantly making it look indistinct. She didn't want to have to go through the entire explanation of her involvement with her sister, especially when it was about something that didn't actually matter. "Only the word on the street."

They returned to their seats when the food came and made random small talk successfully. By the top of the ninth, when Jon managed to leg out a groundball, Arya was beginning to grow tired of her giggling sister, which was commendable if one considered how long she had lasted with only the single tirade against her sister's love life.

Joffrey managed not to fuck up the popup that ended the game, and she grunted unhappily as she and Sansa stood to depart the box. The Monarchs won, which was never a reason to celebrate, but Arya felt that it was good she and Sansa had gone to the game together. She also thought her sister's confession was good to get off her sister's chest, but was horrified Sansa was unwilling to do anything about it. She had half a mind to go to her father, and had even entertained the unthinkable prospect of informing her mother. In the end, however, as she and Sansa threaded their way down the levels of the Dragonpit towards the parking ramp, Arya admitted to herself that she was glad her sister considered her close enough to reveal what she had, and going behind her back, even for her own safety, threatened to break that tenuous link that had unknowingly developed.

As they emerged amid a crowd of giddy fans, Arya glanced back up at the stadium and thought of her brother. Making a decision, she tapped Sansa on the arm and said, "You go on ahead. I think I'm going to wait for Jon. I haven't seen him in so long."

"For Jon?" Sansa repeated, stopping with her and glancing uneasily up at the stadium. "The team won't be out for hours, Arya."

"I know. I'll wait, I don't mind. I really want to see him."

Sansa glanced around the crowd. "It's dark, Arya. It won't be safe down here at night."

"I can look after myself," Arya replied. "They won't be too long, they lost. There won't be much for them to say to the press or anybody. You just go on, I'll get a cab after I see him. Don't worry. I'll be fine."

Though she looked as though she still disapproved, Sansa sighed and nodded. She quickly stepped forward and hugged Arya in farewell. "Thanks for coming, Arya. I actually had a good time—more than I would with Cersei, anyway. Just... please don't..."

"They're sealed," Arya replied grimly, tapping her lips and shooting her own look of disapproval. Sansa merely nodded, murmured a goodbye, and then disappeared into the crowds.

Arya stared after her for a few moments, frustrated at the predicament, and then shook her head to herself before beginning to weave her way back through the crowds. Growing up as the major league owner's daughter had given her an acute instinct of ways around ballparks, and she found her way to the team exits relatively quickly as the fans dispersed into the night. The game had been lopsided and quick, and there was still a faint bit of sunlight slipping over the distant horizon. She propped herself on a park bench and began flipping through her phone absently as the night wore on, waiting for the Night Watch to emerge from the battleground after their defeat.

She was glad that they were the first to emerge. Despite what Sansa had said, Arya was only occupying herself with mindless apps for an hour before the players began to file out, grumbling to themselves and strolling lazily towards the bus that pulled up in wait. She stood up from her bench, but none of the players seemed to notice her. She recognized several of them—Grenn, Pyp, Tarly—but they saddled past her without comment until finally a lean, dark figure emerged in street clothes with a duffel hoisted over his shoulders.

His eyes found hers almost instantly and he broke into a lopsided grin despite the obvious gloom of the situation. The darkness of her own eyes was reflected in his, and she felt her face open up to a beam as he broke stride with the rest of his team and began to strut towards her purposefully.

Arya broke into a run, and pelted into Jon Snow's arms as he dropped his duffel. His laugh filled her ears as she clung to him, laughing as well. Spinning around in their embrace, he finally set her back down on her feet, both of them grinning foolishly.

"Hey, you," he said, ruffling her hair, which would have annoyed her if she was not so happy to see him. "What are you doing here? You should have let me know you were coming."

"I wanted it to be a surprise," she answered. She had missed him; even about things that she would never think about asking Sansa about, she could go to Jon. He was the only one of her siblings who didn't grow frustrated with her constant spiel of baseball knowledge. "Sansa and I came to the game."

He grunted. "Yeah. Sorry about that. We kind of didn't show up today, did we? I was gonna call you and tell you I was in town, but I figured you would already know and we don't really have any downtime. We got in early this morning from Castle Black and we fly out only a few hours after game three for the Dreadfort. I didn't figure I'd have a chance to see you."

"You want to go grab a drink or something?"

He eyed her pointedly. "And how old are you again? Sixteen?"

"Shut up," she snapped. "Fine, I'll have a soda. How about it?"

Jon winced and checked his watch, his curly black hair framing his shadowy face. "I don't know. It's kind of late."

"You've got another night game tomorrow," she complained, clutching his arm and trying to drag him away persuasively. "Come on, we won't stay out late, I just want to spend time with you. If you ever came down to Winterfell once in a while it wouldn't be a problem."

"You know why I can't do that." Jon's face became grave, and he looked away for a few moments. Arya knew what he was thinking of, and she was afraid she'd already spoiled her time with her brother when he glanced back with a small smile. "Besides, you're always down here in the offseason, and it's impossible to fly a plane from the Wall in the winter. Expensive as hell, too."

She looked up and him and put on the biggest pouting wolf face she could. He was the only one in the family who gave into it, ever, and she knew that he would give into it now. "Please, Jon?"

He sighed, and she knew she had already won. He dropped his duffel on the ground to signify his succumbing and then stalked back to the bus. As the team members looked between her and Jon uncertainly, no doubt thinking her a romantic interest of some sort, she watched Jon catch the Watch manager Jeor Mormont lightly by the arm and say something quietly. The old bear of man, balding and irony, glared sharply at her and then growled something to Jon. They exchanged a few more words before the manager shook his head grumbling and climbed onto the bus. Jon turned and walked back to her as the bus doors closed and the vehicle began rolling on its way to the team's hotel.

"Was he mad?" Arya asked as Jon picked his duffel back up from the ground. If she were not herself, she would have felt guilty. As it was, she was only excited she was getting to spend some time with him.

"Eh," Jon answered sketchily. "He's always gruff about something. Gave me permission, if not his blessing. We're on good terms, I don't really think he minded."

"Good," she replied. While she wouldn't have felt guilty if he had, she didn't desire her brother to incur his manager's wrath on her account. Beaming, they strode side-by-side to the street and she hailed a taxi, immediately telling the driver to take them to the nearest sports bar.

When they arrived, Jon bought them two sodas and they retreated to a dim booth in the corner where hopefully he wouldn't attract any attention. The bar was sparsely occupied on a week night, anyway, many of its thankfully quiet patrons seeming to be nursing their fourth drinks and being quite subdued about it. Arya was happy for the fact; with her returning to Winterfell, where extraneous factors not currently present would pressure against it, it would be even more difficult to grab a moment of quality time with Jon.

"How's school?" he asked as they slid into the booth.

She rolled her eyes. It was always the first question she was asked, be it by Sansa or Ned or her brothers. "School's awful. I can't wait for it to be done. I miss Winterfell, and Bran and Rickon. And Mom, too."

He chuckled at her grimace, sipping at his soda. "I'm sure school's not all that awful."

"How would you know? You never went to college. Robb, neither. You two got lucky getting drafted out of high school in high rounds. It's just me and Sansa that have to go through this, and she's perfect for inner-city school life. I can't stand it... being cooped up in town all winter, where it's still loud and the snowfall melts away almost instantly."

"For your information," Jon replied, "I find that I have some regrets about not accepting a scholarship offer from someone and playing a few years of college ball before going pro, and I'm sure Robb does, as well. That's an experience we'll never get back, and I think you should do your best to enjoy it while you have it." He gulped down a swallow and then seemed to reconsider, frowning. "How're the boys around King's Landing treating you, though?"

Arya couldn't help but grin at her brother. "They're as uninterested as in Winterfell, don't worry."

"Bah, I'm not worried," he insisted. "Mildly surprised, actually. I would have expected they would have rather a lot to do with a Stark, especially you. Can't say I'm upset they're minding their place, though."

She knew he hadn't meant it insultingly, but she still stared into her glass silently for a moment, pushing down the feeling of discomfort that arose at his words. Not that she was particularly interested in a relationship... just that the hooking-up vibe hadn't translated over from high school and between baseball and school work she was too busy for a distraction anyway. Nevertheless, Jon's words reminded her of the truth she herself had spoken a moment before, that no one had really shown an interest in her, either; at least, not after they'd learned how incredibly stubborn and feisty she really was.

He seemed to notice her engrossment with the drink, and stared at her from under his eyelashes. "Is there... someone who interests you? Or is that look mean there's someone in secret?"

"It doesn't mean either," she muttered, downing a swig. "It means no one's interested, which suits me fine."

"Hmm," Jon hummed, watching her warily. "Okay." They were silent for a few moments before he added, "I heard from Dad he was in King's Landing a few days ago."

"Yeah, I saw him," she answered. "He, Sansa, and I had lunch when he was here." She bit her lip, on the verge of telling Jon about Gendry, before deciding she should keep that information to herself; if the mechanic-turned-pitcher flopped, she didn't want to feel too embarrassed about it. She covered her hesitation by asking, "Did you hear about Robert Baratheon?"

"Yes. Last I heard, he was dancing with death, and they weren't any closer to solving the mystery of his accident. You'd think traffic cameras would've caught a plate on the hit car or something, and it just driving off afterwards, hardly slowing... It's too bad. Him and Dad have always seemed to be close. When I met Robert, Dad was really uneasy, looking between me and him oddly, but Robert can make Dad laugh, like nobody else I've ever seen. It'll be a sad day for the Starks if Robert dies."

Arya nodded. "What do you think it will do to the Monarchs, if their owner passes?"

"I don't know." His brow darkened, once more, as if night itself were entering his expression. He thumbed his soda coldly. "Nothing good for the rest of the league, I'm sure." He glanced up at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched as a teasing glint entered his eye. "Speaking of that, though, Dad also told me you had an interesting surprise for him when he was down here."

She sat straight up, aware of the blood rushing into her cheeks. "What?"

"Said you had a street pitcher who could almost throw a hundred down here for him, and that you insisted he sign him to a contract. Of major league dollars, too."

Arya was only half-surprised that Ned Stark would have willingly told Jon about Gendry; Ned was close to all of his children, but he had a special connection with his two eldest sons, and hid little from them, even though Jon played for an opposing team; not as if telling him about Gendry would be letting a great cat out of the bag anyway. Mostly, she was startled that her father had so readily revealed her role in the signing.

"I didn't insist," she clarified quickly. "I suggested. Gendry's got good stuff, it'd be a shame to pass on him."

"Gendry?" Jon said, raising his eyebrows. "That sounds like a first name."

"It is his first name."

One of eyebrows went down. "Already on a first name basis with the prospect. You known him for a long time?"

She caught his drift, and rolled her eyes. "Simmer down, Snow." He flinched with the use of his non-Stark surname, and though it was a low blow Arya hoped it had sufficiently distracted him. "I only knew him for about a week before I got Dad to sign him. I just saw him play, and then got Dad to look at what he could throw, and when Luwin saw it he agreed to give him a contract."

"Must've been pretty good for that dollar amount," Jon said blankly, finishing his soda and placing it back on the table.

"He is good," Arya blurted, happy to finally have the conversation on something that didn't make her feel awkward. "Robb caught him at the Dragonpit the other day, and seemed really impressed, and you know how Luwin is—all stoic and necessary and all that—but even he barely took two glances before agreeing. He's got a slider that's nearly as nasty as Dad's was, back in the day, and faster, too. If you can't see his arm drop at the last, it's practically unhittable."

"Careful," Jon murmured with a smile. "Don't tell me all of his secrets, or I'll end up ruining his career in one outing."

"Dad set Dondarrion in Blackhaven to mix him into the bullpen rotation," Arya continued, "but there's no telling how he'll react to the professional stage. With two pitches, he may only be a specialist or a set-up man, but if he can throw ninety-nine consistently like he's already shown he might be able to develop into a closer."

"You seem invested."

She blinked. "Sorry. I want him to do well."

"Why is that?"

She shrugged. "Why wouldn't I? He plays for the Direwolves franchise, he's got great stuff, and I was the one who discovered him. That's really why I want him to. If he does well, I can claim him as my own find, which he actually was. If I can get my degree and put that on a résumé, I can lobby with that to get a good position in an organization. It doesn't need to be glamorous, just a reasonable spot on a scouting team, and I'll work my way up from there. So yeah, I want him to succeed so I will look good in having found him."

"Well, for that," Jon replied, grinning at her and raising his empty glass, "since he and the Direwolves are in the National League and I and my Watch are in the Westerosi League, I will happily wish him the best. At least until World Series time. Until then, however, I will continue to root for Gendry. What's his full name, anyway?"

"Waters," Arya answered, and was immediately sent back to the day in the mall, when they'd been weaving their way through the crowd and he'd divulged that secret, about his last name, in his own moment of weakness. She had enjoyed that—his blue eyes had turned even bluer, the deepest, prettiest shade she'd ever seen before, as he'd murmured his explanation reverently, frowning stubbornly as he realized what he'd done. It made up slightly for his ability to get under her skin and the fact that he'd wormed his way through her defenses, as well, that she'd also been able to sneak through and steal a secret of her own. "Gendry Waters."

She stirred and glanced back at Jon, who was now watching her with a mixture of amusement and suspicion. His empty, raised glass was half-hearted, as was his voice. "To the success of Gendry Waters, then."

Her glass was as empty as his when she set it back down on the table, and he was glancing at the clock. He turned back to her, looking as if he were considering walking into the lion's den. "How's Bran been?"

She understood his discomfort. She herself had to swallow and clear her throat before she could answer. "I haven't seen him since Christmas, but the computer screen skypes him through as happy. You know he's been really brave about it, and everything. He might be the family member who's shed the fewest tears over it, actually, except maybe Dad, and Dad's made of ice that way."

"It was my fault," Jon began, starting the familiar discussion—and argument—she was constantly forced to fight him with. "If I just hadn't've been talking with him when—"

"Shut up," she snapped. "No, just shut up, Jon! It wasn't your fucking fault, no one could have known."

"That's a basic rule," Jon muttered. "Never turn away when the pitch is going in. I should have made him pay attention."

"I'm not talking about this anymore," Arya growled, crossing her arms over her chest and slumping. The warm feeling her prospect finding had instilled and the joy at seeing her brother were evaporating with the mood swing of the conversation, and she would have nothing to do with its further deterioration; she wouldn't get another chance to see him at least until the season was over. The Watch didn't play interleague with Winterfell that year; this was her only time with Jon until the offseason came again.

"Sorry," he said quietly. Guiltily. Staring at his hands. "I didn't mean to kill the mood."

"It's all right," she replied, thinking they could do with something a shade stronger than their soda. But she was underage, and he was in-season, and she had studying to do. She glanced across the tabletop and watched Jon nudge his glass back and forth for a while, thinking. "You know, it would really make us happy if you came home."

He looked up at her. "Arya. You know that's not going to happen. Besides, the Wall's my home now. Castle Black is my home. Not Winterfell."

"Just because Mom doesn't want you back doesn't mean—"

"I don't know what you think it means," Jon cut her off, cutting through her words with a dry chuckle on his voice, "but it certainly means that your mother won't stand for having me back in your home. _She _blames me, you know that, even if she says otherwise. Compound that with my name, and you... well, I don't have much reason to go back to Winterfell."

"Dad always has a contract open for you," she said with a slight grin.

He scoffed, but it was in good nature. "I don't know if I'd sign that even if I could, but it's a moot point. I'm locked down for almost ten years with the Watch, and they sow no-trade clauses in between the lines of all of their signings. It looks like ol' Jon Snow's not breaking the wondrous Night Watch tradition of playing only for them in a career. The gods know everyone who does winds up injured or dead within the next year. Even Uncle Benjen didn't tempt fate."

"Uncle Benjen's a Stark, too," Arya grinned. "Full of honor to the last."

"Aye, even when winter is coming." Jon grinned back at her. He picked up her glass and dragged it next to hers as he readied himself to stand. At the last moment, he stopped, and eyed her. "I'm not sure if I'm ever going to come back south, Arya."

She started, and sat straight up. "How do you know that? It's not like you're bound to the Wall for life. You always complain about it!"

"Yeah," he groaned with another small smirk, "but it's not all bad. And there's this feeling you get on the Watch that's just... you start to feel like you don't belong anywhere else, I don't know how to describe it. But it sort of feels like I just can't come back. Not anymore. I'm already not welcome in Winterfell, and that's the only home I had ever had before. Just look at Benjen. He started and ended with the Watch, too, and even in retirement he couldn't pull himself off the Wall. He's the only sporting goods store, around, too, in that icy hellhole."

"See, you just called it a hellhole," Arya replied, frowning at him. "How can you say you want to stay there forever?"

"I don't know, Arya. It's just a feeling. Things are going to change soon, anyway. Sansa's getting married, Robb—gods, Robb's practicallymarried to that Jeyne girl right now—and soon enough you'll meet someone and settle down, too. Then all the Starks will be spread across the nation, and it won't even be worth it for me to come back to Winterfell, anyway. The Wall is mine, now, Arya, the same as Robb inherited Winterfell, Sansa will settle in King's Landing, and you'll marry and go off to who-knows-where."

"I'm not in the mood to marry," Arya growled. "Too much baseball to watch. Too many prospects to find. No one interested. No one interesting enough for me."

Jon chuckled and began to stand. "You say that now, and believe me, he'll have to go through me if he wants to marry my little sister. But that's how it gets you, in the end, whether I like it or not. Just sweeps you right off your feet. Might even be someone you already know, worming their way through your defenses. Right when you think you've got their fastball figured out, they'll drop in a curve and you'll be gone."

She scoffed and nodded sarcastically. "Unless I connect and drive it into the bleachers."

He shook his head, a wry smirk playing on his lips. "No. Not a chance. To steal the heart of Arya Stark, he'll have to be untouchable."


	7. Chapter 6

**6**

His introduction to professional baseball was a rough one.

The first series against Summerhall was spent in totality in the bullpen, learning from the bullpen coach and trying to get along with the other minor league relievers. Some treated Gendry all right, but others glared at him, even to his face, as if they thought he didn't belong there. His bullpen sessions only seemed to make their scowls worsen, and with every fastball he threw he felt as though he was making more enemies. It wasn't exactly an inspiration to his success, but he'd be damned if he let a few angry eyes from his teammates divert him from his road to destiny.

The pitching coach was a one-eyed man named Jack, who all of the relievers had nicknamed "Jack-Be-Lucky", for how unusual and inconvenient that sounded. Gendry was beginning to wonder if Ned Stark made it a point of only hiring one-eyed coaches at his Single-A level. He unfortunately got off to a poor start with Jack-Be-Lucky, who nearly vomited on seeing his throwing motion, velocity notwithstanding.

"Are ye trying to snap your bloody elbow, boy?" he slobbered, offering various and admirably colorful complementary words. "It's a wonder it hasn't broken in two and fallen off in the dirt with how you're throwin'."

Jack's bickering and swearing resulted in two days of back-breaking, repetitively irritating tossing in the bullpen that Gendry thought would harm his arm with their intensity more than they would help with his throwing motion. When Jack was finally satisfied that he at least had an idea of how he was supposed to actually throw the ball he returned to his normal bullpen routine, chucking a session where he and his arm could spot on, hoping Dondarrion would give him his shot soon enough. He wasn't the most patient person in the world, and he was quickly losing what serenity he had watching the Thunder battle their opponents from the infuriating safety of the pen.

Word came down from the manager in the third game of their second series, however, an away game against the Lions' affiliate in Lannisport after another disconcerting plane ride, that Gendry should be prepared to pitch that day. After Jack told him, he felt nothing but satisfaction and excitement at first that all at once turned to frantic anxiety only a few minutes before gametime. He'd thrown live to a few batters in the cage, but never in a game scenario... never like this! The entire first inning was spent nervously bouncing on the balls of his feet, wondering if he actually wanted to go into the game or not.

_What the hell are you thinking about? _he chastised himself as soon as that thought crossed his mind, angry that he'd even had the idea. _Of course you want to do this. This is your shot, your chance to do this. You're not going to get another one. Swallow your goddamn nerves and focus._

For all of his talk, they returned in full force the moment the bullpen coach looked up from the phone in the sixth inning and called, "Waters. You're up."

Gendry released his breath in a whoosh from where he stood next to the bench, and self-consciously felt every eye of every reliever sitting on the bench swing to face him as he unsteadily removed his team-issue jacket and picked up his team-issue glove from the cubby marked with sharpie-drawn masking tape labeled "Waters". His heart began to beat prematurely and heavily as he trod the distance to the fake rubber set on the short and only hill in the bullpen, catching the ball the bullpen catcher tossed him. A billion thoughts raced through his head as he stretched his arm out with lazy warm-up throws, most of them angry voices putting down the pitiful voices that made him want to run away from the game. He wasn't even making attention to the meltdown the starter was beginning to endure on the playing field, so occupied was he with the bullpen catcher and his miserable thoughts.

"You're on, Waters. Hustle out there."

At first, Gendry did not realize what the bullpen coach had said, and when he finally did he missed catching the ball the catcher had tossed back. He froze for a moment in shock before recovering, if only for the sake that no one would see him hesitate in his fear. He forced his legs to carry him off the mound, two strides to the stair, three lunges down to the open door of the outfield and then he was jogging across the field, nearly running twice into his Blackhaven outfielders as they rushed out to take the field between innings.

He was shaking when he arrived at the mound, so nervous he couldn't think. He steeled his muscles to control himself, and picked up the baseball with an overly strong grip. He tried taking several deep breaths to calm himself, smacking the ball into the mitt, and then stepped onto the mound to begin his on-field warm-up.

It was a giant relief that he didn't throw his first practice pitch to the backstop, only having it end up a foot high and a foot outside instead. His second one spiked a foot in front of the plate, and the following three all missed the strike zone. He tried to force away his anxiety, to make his arm throw how he knew it wanted to, how he knew it could. By the eighth and final pitch, as the ball was thrown through to second base and around the horn, he was able to nick the corner of the strike zone, which he considered a monstrous victory.

When he turned back from receiving the ball anew from the third baseman, the catcher had walked out to the mound and had removed his mask. Thoros was a middle-sized man who must've been in his mid-thirties, making Gendry wonder what he was doing at the Single-A level. They had not interacted, but from the mutterings of the other relievers Gendry wasn't sure he was the type of man to become fast friends. His long hair was restrained by a band, his mask clutched in his hands, and the expression on his face was a mixture of some strange apathy and intensity.

"Hey, kid," Thoros growled, in way of greeting. "First time, eh?"

Gendry nodded, and felt his hand clench on the baseball in trepidation. "I'm ready."

"Eh, well..." Thoros appeared unconvinced, his large hands patting his mitt uneasily. They both glanced at the scoreboard, finding the Thunder down three runs, before turning back to face each other. The unkempt catcher shrugged. "Let's just do your thing. Fastball, slider?"

"Yes."

"Just relax. We'll get 'em."

Thoros turned and jogged awkwardly back to the plate beneath all of his catcher's equipment, Gendry watching him go with narrowed eyes before digging his cleats against the rubber. He released his breath again in a hiss, trying to lose his anxiety with it and focus on what mattered. _It's just baseball. This is baseball. You love baseball. Throw the damn baseball_.

The first hitter stepped up to the right-side of the plate and smacked the dirt of his shoes before settling in. Thoros crouched behind the plate and signaled for the fastball. Gendry came set and delivered. The ball sailed in and curved beneath the batter's left knee, inches low and inside.

"Ball one!" the umpire called as Thoros chucked it back.

Gendry made the catch and returned to the mound. "One pitch," he whispered to himself aloud. "No big deal. That's why they give you four balls, so you don't do it more than once."

Thoros called for a fastball again, and though he set up over the heart of the plate the pitch missed by over a foot outside, the aging catcher having to lunge to bring it in before it skipped away to the backstop. The Lannisport crowd laughed and jeered loudly, shouting insults and slanders and making Gendry grit his teeth. As Thoros lobbed the ball back, he waved his arms lightly at Gendry in the universal pitcher/catcher message of "Calm down".

Down two balls already, Gendry threw the next one belt-high and inside for ball three, and in his growing anger at himself he spiked ball four. He swore under his breath as he stabbed to catch Thoros' return toss, the crowd roaring with glee as the batter tossed aside his bat and trotted down to first. From the corner of his eye, he watched Dondarrion climb to the top step of the dugout, rubbing a face over his hand with as much uneasiness in his expression as was roiling in Gendry's stomach.

"We're fine!" Thoros called, clapping against his mitt. "Keep throwing the good stuff!"

_Keep throwing the good stuff,_ Gendry repeated to himself, stepping onto the rubber as a left-handed hitter stepped up to the plate. _Throwing upper nineties is no good if you can't hit the strike zone. _He soothed his racing heart with that thought in mind, zeroing in on Thoros' mitt as the fastball was called for. He eyed the runner's lead on first and came set, waiting a heartbeat longer than he wanted to.

With a tiny exhale, he strode out like a leap and hurled the baseball at the plate. It careened right down the middle, where it found the hitter's bat as it arced around in a gigantic swing.

Gendry was helpless to move as he watched the ball fly up, leaving behind little hope it would ever come down again. The crowd was roaring before the batter had even left the box next to home plate, and the ball landed beyond the cheap fence in right field before he was halfway down the first base line. Gendry cursed under his breath again and kicked the dirt on the mound viciously. For a moment, he wished he was back in Tobho Mott's shop, where he could rear back and slam something with a hammer as hard as he wanted.

_The game's not over_, he told himself through his anger. _The inning's not over. You have three outs to get. Refocus._

He took a new ball back from the umpire and turned his back as the two runners crossed the plate, high-fiving one another. Ignoring the jeering crowd made his jaw set angrily, but he didn't want to show more negative emotion than he already had. He realized that kicking the dirt had not sent a great message to Dondarrion about his mentality, and resolved not to do it again. _No matter what happens, do not lose your cool._

The first pitch to the next hitter hit the batter in his thigh, despite his earnest attempts to avoid the incoming ninety-nine miles per hour fastball. The man grunted loudly in pain, and the crowd erupted, booing Gendry profusely as the batter threw away his bat and began to limp down to first base. Thoros called time with the umpire and trotted out to the mound, handing a new white baseball to Gendry as he did so.

"You all right?" he asked Gendry, who nodded. "We're still going here. Get us a ground ball, we'll have two outs. Let's just keep the heat low, shall we?"

"Yeah," Gendry replied, and Thoros clapped him on the shoulder before rushing back to the plate. A side-glance at the dugout told him that Jack-Be-Lucky was on the phone, and he couldn't help but glance at the bullpen to confirm that two other relievers were already warming up.

That set him in a fine mood of glumness as he took the sign for his fourth hitter. He managed to deliver the first pitch, another fastball, for a knee-high strike across the heart of the plate, which the batter let go, evidently trying to gauge Gendry's speed and find a way to catch his bat up to it.

_That last hitter didn't seem to have a problem with it. Throw harder._

He did, and missed the strike zone by a few inches outside. The runner aggressively left the bag as the pitch went in, he noticed, and he started as he remembered that he had to hold the man on first base, as well.

Thoros called for another fastball, tapping his left leg to show he was setting up inside, and waited, crouching low and holding out his glove. Gendry came set, his eyes low over his left shoulder, watching the runner at first shimmy another step away from the base. _One step more and I can pick him off... if he only takes one more step..._

The runner didn't move, and Gendry prepared to make the pitch. Then a flicker of moment in the corner of his eye distracted him, and he halted, trying to cover the beginning of his motion to the plate.

"Balk!"

For the third time, Gendry swore, closing his eyes as the two umpires on the field held up their arms. His movement had been small before hesitating, but more than enough for professional officials to pick up on, and the runner calmly trotted to second base as his infraction was called. Dondarrion, on the top steps of the dugout, hung his head and muttered something Gendry was too far away to hear.

"On me!" Thoros called. "Let's go!"

Anger at himself, at the damn catcher for speaking, at the baseball for not doing what he wanted it to do, made Gendry come set roughly. When he strode forever, the hitter made contact with the fastball, behind the pitch and driving it foul down the right field line with a lot of velocity. It buried itself in the stands and the crowd gasped in alarm, but all that Gendry cared about was that it was strike two.

With an oh-two count and a runner on second, Thoros dropped down the sign for Gendry's slider. Glad the catcher still had confidence in him to throw offspeed after the start to the inning he'd had, Gendry readied and then delivered the pitch. The arc was true, as was its curve, but his release point had been low and he knew it. The batter half-swung before successfully checking his swing, and the ball bounced only a few inches behind home plate. Thoros had to leap to his knees to block the pitch off of his chest protector, and leaped to his feet to retrieve the ball before the runner could advance to third.

Gendry was still up in the count, but Thoros called for an outside fastball. _No. I can throw the slider for a strike. I can._ He shook his head, and Thoros hesitated before signing for the slider again, to which Gendry nodded.

This time, as his arm came forward the release point was true, and he felt the beauty of the arc as the slider left his hand. Crossing the plate, however, dropping from the batter's elbows to his hips, the hitter threw out his bat blindly and smacked the pitch straight over Gendry's head.

He swung around and watched the ball fall freely into center field, swearing as it did so. It took him a second to realize the runner on second was rounding third, the center fielder scooping the ball off of the outfield grass and wheeling as he slung it home. Gendry realized he was supposed to be backing up home plate and turned to do so only after Thoros caught the throw at head level with a look of disdain at his pitcher, the runner cleanly sliding in safe behind him. The crowd cheered as the run scored, and collectively, Gendry imagined, the Thunder players and coaches swore.

Dondarrion was on the top step and on his way to the mound before the play had ended, calling time as he stepped over the foul line en route to Gendry. Thoros was on his way out, as well, and the infield was collapsing on him, as customary on a pitching change. Gendry seethed inwardly, furious with himself, as the six individuals walked up to him at the same time.

Despite the obvious discomfort on his face, Dondarrion nodded towards the dugout indifferently and clapped Gendry on the back, just as Thoros had moments before. "Don't sweat it. There'll be other chances."

Gendry didn't reply, ripping his glove off his hand and stalking towards the dugout, leaving behind his failures. The crowd roared in approval for him, approval for him giving their team the clear win, and he hated them for it. Instead of bashing his glove against the dugout fence like he wanted to, he kept his head low and his face blank of the effect their jeers were having on him. Once safely under the cover of the dugout overhang, Gendry dropped his glove on the bench instead of tearing it in two and sat as far away from anyone else as was possible, which wasn't an issue, seeing as they were doing their best to sit as far away from him, as well.

For the rest of the game, as he watched the other Thunder relievers grapple and finally regain control of the hitters, the pitches he'd thrown began to run over and over again in his head, like a constantly looping instant replay tape. He seemed to recall them more vividly than he had noticed them at the time, and as such each mistake in his mechanics or his placement was blatantly obvious. Caught in this never-ending review of his mistakes, Gendry sat in the dugout alone, reliving his professional debut mournfully, as the Thunder lost and the team filed out of the dugout into their clubhouse on the other side of the concourse. He was the last one out of the showers, and the last one onto the bus back to the motel. That night, he couldn't sleep, the memories of the game haunting him as fiercely as they had postgame in the dugout.

He seethed quietly for three days, as the Lannisport series concluded and they flew to Moat Cailin for a four-gamer. Nothing seemed incredibly amiss around him, but all Gendry could think about was the disaster that had been his previous outing on the mound. The majority of relievers still regarded him coolly, although he managed to get along with a few enough not to feel awkward around them, and Jack-Be-Lucky still went about their sessions with the same bitter eagerness and motivation.

"What the hell is this, then?" Jack said, holding up a hand to halt Gendry's pitches in the bullpen one day. "You're holding back. You're not throwing like you can."

"I'm trying to tone it down," Gendry replied after a moment, meekly. "I just want to be in control of my pitches."

Jack scratched at his beard and watched Gendry with his one eye for a long moment before sighing and shaking his head. "Lad, no pitcher got great from throwing stuff he didn't have. You're not here to 'tone it down', and I say that in the most positive manner there is. You're here to throw the ball hard, and gods be damning it, you're going to throw the ball hard until you hit your damn spots throwing the ball hard! Understand?"

Gendry was so surprised by the gruff outburst that he only nodded. It took several moments for him to return to the mindset of the fireballer he had been signed to be, instead of the precision pitcher he was trying to be. Jack-Be-Lucky watched silently as Gendry pulled back for more pitches, forcing himself to pretend he was still in a street in King's Landing, and Arya was catching him, and Ned Stark was watching. Every pitch for the remainder of the bullpen session buried itself in the catcher's mitt without the man having to move it, most of them in excess of high nineties on the speed gun.

That session was major in getting some of Gendry's confidence back, and perhaps enough to inspire Dondarrion to put him back in the game again. In the second game of the series, with two outs in the seventh and runners on second and third, Dondarrion took the ball from the starter and called Gendry in from the bullpen.

"Get us out of here, Waters," Dondarrion said, handing him the ball. "Just do your thing, and we'll be good."

Gendry nodded and took his warm-up pitches half-dreading, half-excitedly anticipating the impending at-bat, eager to prove himself and fearful of failing, once again. _Don't be a craven, fool. Just throw the baseball._

The right-handed batter stepped up to the plate and Gendry calmly delivered pitch number one to him. It was a fastball down the heart of the plate, the batter swinging behind the pitch, Gendry noticed with glee. _My speed is with me, today._

The second pitch missed the plate by only an inch on the outside corner, another fastball. On the third, the batter was still behind it and swung at a high pitch that may have been called a ball had he let it go, catching a piece of it just enough to spending it spinning foul towards the first-base dugout.

Up 1-2, Thoros called for the slider, and Gendry nodded. His mechanics were true, and the ball left his hand well. The batter, adjusting from a ninety-nine mile per hour fastball, was out in front and just managed to nick the ball, fouling it down between Thoros legs instead of into his mitt. Thoros called for another slider, and this time the batter took it down and away.

With the count even at two apiece, Gendry hurled a fastball, which the batter _again_—somehow—managed to foul away back to the screen. As he stalked back to the mound, Gendry was beginning to get frustrated. _Five strikes I've thrown this hitter. Just swing and miss, buddy, or, better yet, don't swing at all. I need this._

The next fastball missed low. Thoros framed the ball for a full second before it was apparent the umpire wasn't going to give Gendry the benefit of the doubt, and then tossed it back. With a full count, Thoros glanced up at the hitter waiting quietly in the box and then dropped a sign for a slider again. Gendry paused, remembering what Jack had said in his turnaround bullpen session, about being there to throw heat . With that in mind, he shook off the sign, only to have Thoros give it again, more insistently this time.

Disgruntled, Gendry stepped off the rubber, moving his right foot behinds. The runners retreated to their bases and he wiped sweat his forehead as Thoros slumped angrily behind the plate. Pitcher and catcher exchanged a glance that didn't seem to do anything to resolve their situation, and when it was apparent Thoros wouldn't come out to the mound to discuss their differences Gendry stepped back on the rubber.

_Just sign the damn fastball_, Gendry prayed silently. _Blow him away and let's go home._

Thoros relented in light of the full count, despite first base being open for the walk, and Gendry came set. He reared back and fired, Thoros snagging the inside pitch at the batter's knees. The bat never let the hitter's shoulders, and he made to toss it back towards the bullpen to trot down to first with a walk. As Thoros framed the pitch, however, the umpire stepped back and wrung the hitter up on strikes, and Gendry heaved a sigh of relief and triumph.

The Thunder sprinted into their dugout as the crowd gasped and booed, and Gendry met Thoros at the top step. Touching his catcher's arm, Gendry said, "Hey. Thanks for going with it. It worked in the end."

For a moment, Thoros just stared at him darkly, and then tucked his catcher's mask under his arm while pursing his lips. "Next time," he growled, low and threatening, "just throw the damn pitch I call for, okay."

He turned his back on Gendry and slouched into the dugout, leaving Gendry on the top step looking after him. He stared, surprised and confused, for a long moment before turning his gaze slightly to the left and finding his gaze locked with Beric Dondarrion's. The manager regarded him with cool, narrow eyes for a long moment, until he was smart enough to stir himself into motion, bustling himself down the stairs and into the dugout, as far away from Thoros as was possible. A few of his teammates congratulated him on his first professional strikeout, which he accepted gratefully. Dondarrion didn't send him back out for the eighth inning, and for the rest of the game Thoros kept his distance, clearly refusing to look at Gendry, who wondered if he'd made a serious mistake.

The days began to blend together. One series ended and another began. His arm was hurting more than usual today, his elbow feeling some days as though he should just tear it off of his arm. Jack-Be-Lucky was fiercely intent on pushing him forward, however, and though he was reluctant to cross paths with Thoros after their confrontation outside of the dugout, Gendry was beginning to become comfortable where he was. Some of the relievers were warming up to him and he began to actually have a good time just spending the games with them out behind the outfield fences, laughing or critiquing or watching the game with trepidation.

One night, when they were back in Blackhaven, Gendry returned to the apartment complex the team rented out for temporary use by its players and turned on the TV, finding a late major league game still going on. Lying on the couch the two-room living quarters he shared with a teammate, his arm buried to the bicep in ice, he watched the two teams play and found himself thinking of Arya.

He had no idea where the thought had come from; neither of the teams playing were the Direwolves and nothing had been said by the commentators that should have reminded him of her. Nevertheless, all of a sudden there was a feisty little brown-haired wolf girl in his head and, with a stubbornness her real-life self would have admired, she refused to leave his thoughts. He found himself dwelling on the almost-intimate moments they'd shared in the mall, and the predicament that started it all back in Mott's shop on a late Friday evening... the moment that began it all, he realized. If not for that moment, he wouldn't be in Blackhaven.

_I wouldn't be professional. I'd be nobody. _He blinked. She _changed that._

Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through all of the five contacts he had and glared at her name for a long time in the dark evening, staring at the illuminated screen. His finger paused over the button to place the call, and with shock at what he had been about to do, he flung the phone away from himself.

"That was _too _close," he growled to himself, staring at the TV screen without seeing. "I mean, why would you even _think _about doing that? You have nothing to say to her. You have absolutely no reason to call her. She's probably forgotten about you already, she was a busy little thing. Why are you even thinking about this?"

Half-frustrated with not knowing the answer to the question and half-disturbed that he was talking to himself alone in the darkness, he turned off the game, retrieved his phone, went to bed, and tried to bury any further thoughts of Arya Stark as deep as he could in his mind. He thought he succeeded, but for the next week his dreams were always invaded by a huge, dark wolf with startling grey eyes.

His third outing with the Single-A Blackhaven Thunder came on a cloudy day in Blackhaven, against the Gulltown Flames. He was brought on to pitch the seventh inning of a game in which the Thunder led by two. Thoros regarded him coolly, their episode of the previous week not forgotten, and warmed him up indifferently, throwing through to second base with perhaps a little more force than he would usually employ.

Gendry noticed with glee as he stepped onto the mound that the nerves he had nearly died from during his debut seemed to have left him completely. This was _his _domain; his battleground. He wasn't perfectly at ease, but he was quite comfortable where he stood, in control of the game with the ball in his hand.

The first hitter he faced was the Flames' leadoff hitter. Thoros called for an inside fastball and Gendry complied, delivering the pitch with the customary motion he'd worked hard with Jack-Be-Lucky on for the past several weeks to refine. To his surprise and disorientation, the batter squared around and dropped a perfect bunt down the third-base line, though seeming quite surprised by the pitch's speed as he did so. Dropping the bat, the hitter tore off towards first as Gendry sprinted off the mound, towards where the ball was rolling softly in the grass.

The third baseman had no play on the ball. It only took Gendry three strides to reach it, but the quick runner was already halfway down the line when by the time he was there. Dropping to his knees, he slid into the ball, seizing it with his bare hand. Knowing he had no time to set himself, he dug a cleat into the turf, using his momentum to pop back up to his feet, and then whirled and hurled the baseball towards first base as quickly as he could.

It was possibly the best fielding play he'd ever made in his life, but it still trailed the runner by a half-step, and the umpire rightly called safe at first.

The crowd roared in disappointment and booed at the umpire as Gendry walked back to the mound, sighing, catching the ball back from the first baseman and watching the runner on first to gauge the man's willingness to steal.

After taking the sign from Thoros—another fastball—Gendry came set up, watched the runner at first over his shoulder, and then delivered the pitch. The batter swung at it, looking partially lost, and popped the ball straight up. Thoros threw off his mask and took three steps to the right of the plate, turning his back to the pitcher's mound and waiting patiently for the duration of its flight before it landed in his mitt for the first out. The runner was forced to remain on first.

The next hitter looked more comfortable than either of the first two in wake up Gendry's fastballs—and Gendry recalled that the double he'd hit in the first inning had come on a high heater from the starting pitcher—but still took the first pitch for strike one. Gendry executed a pickoff move for the express purpose of keeping the runner on his toes and then looked in to get the second sign. Thoros called for a slider on the next pitch, and Gendry nodded, coming set. He strode forward and released the ball as the first baseman screamed, "Runner!"

Thoros caught the pitch outside, seized the ball from his mitt and hurled it over Gendry's head. The throw was off-target, and Gendry heard Thoros swear angrily as the runner was able to slide in safely with a stolen base. Irritated that despite his efforts the man had been able to steal, Gendry was happy when Thoros called for another fastball, which he slung home happily for strike two. The hitter swung right over the top of it, abruptly looking at his bat as though expecting to see a hole in it.

Fastball was the call again on pitch number four, and Thoros set up right over the heart of the plate, closing his glove once to signify his desire for Gendry to just blow the hitter away, as they had done in his previous outing. Gendry obliged, and the hitter, now looking far less confident than he had when he approached the plate, watch it sail by helplessly for strike three. Gendry couldn't help but grin as he received the ball back from Thoros, not at the batter's incredulity but that he finally felt in-control of his game.

He missed the plate with the first pitch fastball to the next hitter, and the second one also failed to land in the strike zone. The euphoria of the previous moment had begun to slip away, and in his eagerness to feel it again he threw the next pitch directly down the heart of the plate. The moment he released it, he knew it was a mistake, and the resounding crack of the bat didn't disappoint him.

When the ball landed, it one-hopped off the left-center field fence, and the runner from second was already rounding third to score easily. Gendry half-heartedly, disgustedly, took three steps to back up home plate before he realized it wouldn't be needed, and then stalked back to the mound to retrieve the baseball as the hitter trotted to second with a double.

_Damn it._

He took the rubber again, frustrated, and eagerly prepared to throw the next pitch. Thoros gave him another 'calm-down' gesture, which only tweaked Gendry's nerves further, especially considering his current standing with the catcher. He was further surprised and irritated when Thoros called for a slider on the first pitch, which he immediately shook off. "No messing around," he hissed aloud. "We gotta get out of here. Just the heat, like Jack-Be-Lucky said. Not to mention," he recalled, "this guy doubled to right on an off-speed in the second, he's looking for it all day.

Thoros, however, thrust down the same sign after being shaken off, his jerky movements clearly signaling Gendry that he expected to be obeyed. Gendry, after a long sigh, came set and checked the runner, having a bad feeling about what he was throwing. Nevertheless, he stepped and hurled the curving pitch, which just barely grazed the corner of the plate for strike one. The batter appeared unfazed by the count, and stepped back in confidently.

For the second pitch, Thoros again called slider, and Gendry, realizing he was stepping into the danger zone, again shook him off. Eyes blazing behind his mask, Thoros put up his hands to call time, and the umpire granted it. Gendry stepped off the mound, expecting a visit, but instead Thoros just lifted his mask and stared at Gendry with stone-cold fury for a few seconds before dropping the mask again and slamming his fist into his mitt with clear intent.

He called for the slider, and Gendry cursed under his breath. _The batter's sitting on it. He's going to crush it a mile._ Thoros wouldn't let him throw it, but he knew he had to. He came set and gripped the ball as his fastball instead of the offspeed. Knowing he was playing with fire, Gendry nevertheless reached back and threw a fastball while his catcher was expecting the slider.

Thoros reacted with the pitch as though it were supposed to curve, and when it didn't, had to bring his glove across his body to snag the heat. Gendry's pitch was too fast, and Thoros completely missed it. The ball sailed past hitter, catcher, and umpire, untouched, hurtling back until it slammed against the screen behind home plate, startling the first four rows of spectators there.

Gendry swore at the same time Thoros bellowed a much more colorful word, sprinting back to retrieve the ball. The runner jogged up to third lazily, the base easily taken, as the catcher seized the ball and muttered a thousand curse words under his breath. It took a great deal of courage on Gendry's part not to look away from Thoros as the catcher walked back to the plate, looking as though he would like nothing better than to kill his pitcher. He knew he had called for slider, knew Gendry had thrown the fastball, and knew that the mistake had been intentional. The ball he slung back at Gendry would have taken the pitcher's head off had he not had quick reflexes.

For his part, Gendry was realizing that he had made a grave error in crossing up his catcher, and was only imagining what Thoros would try to do to him later when the umpire called out for time again and he looked up to see Dondarrion crossing the foul line, on a murder march for the mound.

_Oh, shit._

Thoros smacked his glove suggestively and took three furious steps to the mound when Dondarrion waved him off violently, glaring daggers at Gendry. The infield, which had also when jogging in, froze in their steps and backtracked, wanting nothing to do with their manager when he was on the warpath. Gendry was helpless, with nowhere to hide, no excuse to cower behind, no words to speak as Dondarrion bared down on him, his lips peeled back in a silent snarl, the only eye he had left bright and furious as the sun.

Dondarrion slowed as he approached the mound, climbing with slow steps to where Gendry stood rigidly, nearly quaking atop it. Gendry fought hard to stare into the shorter man's eyes as his manager stepped closer than had him uncomfortable, so close that the brims of their hats were touching and Gendry could have counted the numerous scars on Dondarrion's face.

They stood like that for several moments, and Gendry thought the manager might actually punch him. _Or worse. He knows what just happened. He saw what went down between me and Thoros the other day. _He cursed inwardly, his heart dropping. _He gave you another chance after that first blowup, and you wasted it._

When Dondarrion finally spoke, his voice was low, expressionless, and deadly in its uniformity. "You have talent. You have intelligence. What you don't have is respect, and respect is earned. I have been around this sport for longer than you've been alive, and I can tell you right now that no good teammate—no good player—would ever leave another out to dry like you just did."

Gendry swallowed. "Sir, I—"

"I don't care," Dondarrion snarled. "I don't care what you did, or what you thought. "What do you think this is? Some bloody tryout? You're already on the fucking team, Waters. I know you can throw hard. Ned Stark fucking knows you can throw hard, that's not why you're here! You're here because making it in this game is not only about the stuff you throw, but about the head you throw it with. Right now, you are not impressing me one bit with your head, and your head—not your bloody arm!—is what it will take to get you to the next level."

The manager stabbed a finger towards the plate, where Thoros was still glaring murderously. "I hate a pitcher who blindly follows every sign his catcher gives him, like he's got no mind of his own, but Thoros has been here a hell of a lot longer than you, and when you have earned his respect, then you can stand there and talk to be about your arm, and what pitches you want to throw. When I look at him, I see a man who I trust to make a call, even if it turns out to be wrong one, and I do _not _see that when I look at you. All I see right now is a stuck-up kid who thinks he's got the whole game of baseball figured out. Nothing else. Not yet." He grasped Gendry by the arms, tightly but not painfully, staring the pitcher in the eyes. "_Prove _to me that I'm wrong. _Prove _to me that you're a bigger person than this. Show everyone that you're not just someone with a giant arm, because a lot of people in the world—in the minor _leagues_—have arms just as good as yours. What I need, though, that none of those other pitchers have, is a pitcher who is _tough enough _to compete when his arm isn't enough. I see that in you. Don't disappoint me... don't disappoint yourself."

"All right, guys." The home plate umpire had arrived, checking the watch in his hand. "Are we all ready to finish up here?"

"We're finished," Dondarrion said coldly, and he turned around, stalking for the dugout with the same ferocity that he had left it. Gendry was left gaping on the mound, hardly believing what had just happened. The umpire only glanced at him wryly before returning to the plate, pulling his mask on and ordering the game back into motion. Thoros slammed his glove again.

_Don't disappoint yourself_. The words reverberated in his skull, the impact deep into his soul. _Ned Stark knows you can throw hard. That's not why you're here_.

The batter was already standing in the box again, looking amused about the exchanges that had occurred. The smirk boiled Gendry's blood, but Dondarrion's words hot in his ears inspired him to force down his anger. "You _are _better than that," he whispered to himself. "You do have the head it takes. Show them."

Thoros called for a slider, half-heartedly, as though expecting Gendry to wave it off. Knowing that the batter was sitting offspeed, especially on an even and early count, Gendry's first instinct was certainly to throw a different pitch, but knew that Dondarrion was watching, and knew the course of action that he had to take, bad as a feeling that he had about it.

With extreme reservations, Gendry came set and threw a slider.

The batter kept his hands back, exactly as he had in the first inning, and lined the pitch into right field for a single. The runner on third calmly ran home and touched the plate, tying the game, much to the chagrin of the crowd.

Gendry gritted his teeth as he watched the scoreboard record the tie, but realized that the score was not the point. He took the mound again, careful not to make any sign of incriminating gesture in Thoros' direction. The catcher, for his part, had stopped looking as though he would love to skin Gendry alive and roast him over a fire, although the anger in his body language now seemed directed towards the scoreboard.

The next hitter, Gendry recalled, was also a slap hitter, and after the first fastball hit the strike zone Thoros once again called for a slider. _Why is he messing around with the offspeed? The batters this low in the lineup will never catch up to the fastball._

But he didn't shake his head. He came set and delivered the one-strike slider, and the batter swung at it.

The ball cracked off the end of the bat, and the bat shattered, sending sprays of splinters and one long slab flying across the infield. Gendry ducked the larger piece and watched as the ball squeaked its way over the first baseman's head, just out of his reach, and rolled slowly into right field. He sighed and sprinted behind third baseman to back up the throw, but the right fielder merely lobbed it into second as the runner from first slid into third, and now there were runners in the corners with two down.

Thoros had his mask up and was chewing his lip when Gendry got back to the mound, not looking at anything, seemingly frustrated. When the next batter stepped in all signs of his previous anger were gone, and he signed for a fastball. Gendry delivered it for strike one, the batter forced to watch it fly by without protest. The second pitch called was also a fastball, and the batter swung through it, easily. Thoros hesitated on the third pitch, glancing at both of the runners and then flinching in the fingers before putting down a third fastball sign. Gendry nodded and came set, and delivered strike three on a silver platter. The hitter's bat missed the ball by half a foot.

Gendry sighed in relief and disappointment as the Thunder rushed back in from the field. He glanced up at Thoros, who was in no hurry to get away from him but also not eager to speak with him as they entered the dugout one after the other. Gendry glanced up at the scoreboard and acknowledged that he'd given up the two tying runs. Dondarrion's speech flashed back to him, and he breathed deeply.

_It's not about the score_, Gendry reminded himself. _It's about your bounce back and your competitiveness._

As he walked past Dondarrion towards the bench, the manager caught him by the arm and swung him back around. Expecting a firm rebuke or an additional tongue-lashing, Gendry was immensely relieved when all his manager said was, "You're going out for the next inning, too. Be ready."

Gendry nodded and Dondarrion released him. _Two innings of relief. Good. I want to go back out and show him who I am_.

He turned around, and stopped dead as he found himself eye-to-eye with Thoros. The big catcher seemed in much the same predicament, having just swung around in the midst of removing his gear. The two stood, frozen and awkward, regarding each other with a mixture of discomfort and acknowledgement.

It was a tense moment, finally broken by Thoros diverting his eyes and clearing his throat. Gendry expected him to growl something about continuing to follow his lead, but what the catcher really said was, "My bad. About the last two hitters. Should have thrown heat."

Gendry's jaw fell open in shock, and he immediately covered it by turning it into words. His mind rushed to all of the nasty and furious things he desired to say regarding Thoros' attitude and inability to cooperate, but all that came out of his own mouth was, "No worries. Let's get 'em this inning."

Thoros nodded, albeit stiffly, and Gendry stepped around him, moving along the bench until there was an open space where he could sit down. Removing his cap and setting it next to his glove beside him, he ran his hands through his sweaty hair and reran the conversation he had just had in his head to make sure he hadn't completely gone mental.

He was still puzzling over the encounter when Jack-Be-Lucky dropped in beside him, slapping is shoulder with a backhand to catch his attention and dragging him from his reverie. The gruff coach stared him in the eye for a moment to make sure he was truly attentive and then grunted. "How do you feel out there?"

"Okay," he answered, glancing down at his elbow. It was numb, meaning it would begin aching an hour or two after the game in the worst way. "How many pitches have I thrown?"

"Not nearly enough to worry about," Jack replied. "Are you calm? Relaxed?"

"Sort of," Gendry said, rubbing his hands together. "More so than I was."

Jack stewed for a moment, his jaw moving from side to side as he looked Gendry over. "Never cross up your catcher, boy. Bad things happen. Long memories, they have, and they're the ones that look silly and foolish when it's done."

"Yeah," Gendry sighed, gesturing towards where Dondarrion stood, leaning against a knee propped on the top step, watching the game with a quite expression. "Beric already gave me the talking-to on that one."

"What'd he threaten you with?"

Gendry wracked his mind, replaying the conversation they'd had and shaking his head. "I don't think he threatened me with anything. He just told me to get a better head. Basically, throw what Thoros wanted, because he trusted Thoros more than me and because he wanted to see if I had a good head." He paused. "He seems to want to know if I can follow people other than me, as well."

"He's trying to see if you can see past yourself," Jack-Be-Lucky clarified. "Or if the only thing in your line of vision is your own fat head. Sometimes—especially at Single-A, where, let's face it, it just doesn't matter—it's okay to give up a run or two to prove something your character, eh? Besides, if Dondarrion didn't threaten you out there, that means he likes you. And he doesn't like many. Sometimes I don't even know if he likes Thoros, but there's something of a life debt there, so he's loyal, in that regard."

"Life debt?" Gendry repeated.

Jack-Be-Lucky grinned and shook his head, but it seemed as though the gesture was intended inwardly. "Thoros has been here in Blackhaven for over ten years. He came from Myr, overseas, to play ball, but it turns out he's never really had it in him to cut it at any level but this. Some say, though, that Thoros has singlehandedly resurrected Beric's career six times."

Gendry glanced at his pitching coaching narrowly. "How is that?"

"Many of those seasons he's been here, Blackhaven's been doing horrible, and players are just plummeting," Jack told him. "Putting a really bad look on Dondarrion's name, you know... like he's ruining prospects and so forth. A load of malarkey, if you ask me, but you can understand how it would look. In any case, almost to a science, whenever the Blackhaven slumps really begin to hit their troughs, all of a sudden Thoros goes on a tear at the plate. Just rips up pitchers, no matter who they are or what they're throwing. Simply crushes them. Blackhaven does better around him, Dondarrion keeps his job, and Thoros gets a promotion to Double-A. Then, also routinely, he gets even worse than usual at the next level and gets dumped back down here at Blackhaven to do the whole thing over again. Usually drinks away his paycheck in the process, too."

Gendry listened in silence, taking in the story with surprise. He glanced over to where Dondarrion stood watching the game, a few paces away from where Thoros was pulling on a helmet, passing a bat between hands with a distant expression on his face. The two men didn't acknowledge each other, but Gendry could almost see the bond that was present in the air between them. "That's one of the strangest things I've ever heard."

"The baseball gods work in strange ways," Jack-Be-Lucky said solemnly, as though he were quoting scripture. "In any case, they just have this unspoken understanding. And, even though he's not a great player, Thoros usually has a good head about him. When he's not in his cups, that is."

Only half-listening anymore, Gendry watched Thoros, climbing the top step to the on-deck circle as the second out of the inning for the Thunder was recorded. "That seems like a cruel life, spending an eternity down here, at the bottom of the minor leagues, watching dozens of rookies come through and advance without you."

"It is what it is," his pitching coach replied, shrugging indifferently. "For some people, it's destiny. In others, it's their own determination to change their stars. You can't really tell the good from the great just by looking at them. You have to know their heart, too." He tapped Gendry's arm. "I think you've got a pretty damn good heart going, boy. Just take care that you keep a good head, too."

Jack-Be-Lucky clapped him one last time on the shoulder and then stood to be off to better places in the dugout, leaving Gendry alone with his thoughts. He thought about the last piece that Jack had said, about not being able to differentiate between ability based on surface worth but instead on heart and intensity. Thinking of heart and intensity drew a particularly aggressive Stark girl to mind, and he couldn't help but grin as he imagined how Arya would tear apart the league if only she were a few inches taller and a mild amount stronger. _Pitchers would beg not to leave the bullpen. Fielders would cower at their positions_.

He was so caught up in this startling image that he almost didn't realize the innings were changing. No one said anything to him as his teammates leaped out of the dugout to retake their positions, giving him his space to seethe, as they probably thought he was doing. He flinched and realized what was happening only when Thoros ducked back into the dugout and tossed his helmet into a cubby, quickly beginning to put his catching gear back on. The native of Myr glanced up at him questioningly as he didn't move and Gendry jumped, seizing his glove and hat and hurrying back up onto the field for his second inning of work.

The warm-up pitches seemed to breeze by, his mind already focusing on everything Dondarrion and Jack-Be-Lucky had told him, keeping his head, proving his worth, trusting in his catcher and showing he was above himself. He barely noticed when the ball was thrown through, and almost dropped the return throw from the third baseman before he toed the rubber again, fully focused in now.

Thoros, behind the plate, glanced up at the hitter and seemed to hesitate, finally dropping down a tentative fastball. Gendry obliged and delivered strike one, satisfied as the batter took the dead-center fastball looking dazed.

After a similar hesitation, as though he were trying to meld their minds, Thoros called for another fastball. Gendry nodded, came set, and threw the pitch hard, slinging it for the inside corner. The hitter's bat was quicker, but still nowhere close to touching the baseball.

Way up in the count, Thoros patted his mitt twice, then left a long, pausing moment of thought before he put down the sign for a third fastball. Gendry stared at it long and hard for a very long time, contemplating everything Dondarrion had said, everything Jack had told him. _Sometimes_, he told himself, turning his eye up from the sign to stare into the eyes behind the catcher's mask. _You just have to cooperate_.

Wary of what storm he might begin by doing so, Gendry shook off the fastball. Thoros didn't hesitate, obliging him with a slider sign before setting up for the pitch. Gendry didn't even need to nod as they reached an understanding.

He released the pitch, watching it arc with a fantastic spin. When the batter began to swing, the ball was at the letters of his uniform; when he finished, the barrel of the bat missed the ball by a foot, and Thoros was swiping it away from the air at the batter's kneecaps. Before the batter has finished swinging, Thoros was slinging the ball to third base for the throw-around, the umpire announcing the strikeout loudly.

Gendry looked up at his catcher, and Thoros lifted his mask. The wry old occupant of Single-A Blackhaven gave his pitcher a scarred smirk and dropped his mask back into place. Gendry stepped back onto the rubber and hid his answering smirk behind his glove.

Now they were playing baseball. Now... Gendry Waters could truly begin.


	8. Chapter 7

**7**

The final weeks of Arya's freshman year in college ended up flying by quicker than she'd expected. April bled into May, and, rather abruptly, finals week was there and then gone. Before she could realize what was happening, she was free, and the relief was palpable.

She couldn't move out of King's Landing fast enough. With only a quick goodbye to the few friends she had made over the course of the school year, she was on the first flight to Winterfell, laden with two suitcases and a carry-on where Sansa would have had twelve of each. It was neither a particularly long flight nor a short one, but Arya was still bouncing impatiently for the duration in her seat. Sports magazines, textbooks, even box scores couldn't hold her attention when she was finally returning to Winterfell. She had half a mind to lock herself in the Direwolves' stadium and refuse to ever leave again.

As the plane descended, Arya peered eagerly out of the window and watched Winterfell emerge from beneath the clouds her flight plunged through. The sight of it, as it always had, whether she was three years old or nineteen, took her breath away. Much more spread out if smaller in both area and population than King's Landing, Winterfell stood more as a conglomeration of squat, friendly buildings rather than the tall, imposing, arrogant skyscrapers that coated the skyline of King's Landing. Indeed, the tallest building in Winterfell was actually the Great Keep, the large, green coliseum where the Direwolves played their games.

It seemed to take forever for the plane to circle its way towards the runway of Builder Brandon International, and even longer for the grounded plane to approach its terminal. She was well aware that she had no penchant for patience, but she was still proud that she managed not to shove anyone out of the way in her haste to be off of the plane and out into her home. She even stopped to let a pair of elderly women who may have moved quicker than snails in their youth leave the plane before her, furious as it made her.

Another half hour was spent waiting by baggage claim, but thankfully before the sun had much past its crest in the sky Arya was stepping outside to the airport receiving parking lot, breathing in the chilly scent of May Winterfell air. It was clear and crisp, the way the atmosphere in King's Landing had never been, and she drank it in like a drug for several moments, closing her eyes into the sensation. The act was a foolishly melodramatic thing to do—painfully Sansa-esque—but Arya was so overjoyed to be free of King's Landing that she didn't care.

_I've expanded my horizons_, she reasoned to herself, opening her eyes and glancing about the bright day for the Stark family sedan that would be collecting her. _Maybe I'll transfer before the new school year. Anyplace is better than that smelly hellhole. Father went to Winterfell for his college, and Mother took some courses there. I can go there if I really don't want to get away from home._

She located the sleek black vehicle just as one of its elegant side doors slid open. Expecting to see her father, she was nevertheless thrilled when Rickon stepped out of the car, a bright smile christening his young face. Arya's own grin beamed back at him, and she strode quickly towards the vehicle with her baggage in tow.

Rickon met her a few steps away with a crushing hug, heavy despite his age. Almost a decade younger than she, he still could almost look her in the eye. She wasn't sure if that was because she was incredibly short or because Rickon was tall for his age. She remarked that it was a little of both, remembering how Gendry had called her little. He wasn't little, himself. He was tall; taller than Robb; taller than her father.

She remembered she was hugging her brother, and wondered why she felt like blushing.

"Hey there, crabby wolf," she growled into his hair, squeezing him back as hard as she could. "I missed you. How've you been?"

"Bored as hell," Rickon replied, pulling back to grin at her. He grabbed one of her suitcases as the trunk of the sedan popped, and they hauled her luggage in as he continued, "I miss going to games with you. Bran only likes watching on TV and Dad's always at the stadium on school nights and Mom won't let me go with."

"I'll take you to games, baby brother," Arya smirked, thinking exactly how good it was to be home, slinging an arm around her brother before pushing him towards the backseat of the car. She stalked up to shotgun and smirked at his scowl as she took his seat. "It's good to be back."

Her mother peered at her from behind wide, dark sunglasses as she eased her way into the car and smiled happily. Catelyn Stark was a beauty of the South, hardened by winter and love in the North, a fierce protector of her children and a fierce defender of her beliefs. Arya thought perhaps that all of her father's children had taken after her mother in looks, grace, and dignity. Except for her, and obviously Jon. Nevertheless, Catelyn was her mother, and no one loved their mother more than Arya Stark loved hers.

"Mom," she greeted, leaning across the divide to wrap her mother in a hug as Rickon fell into the back seat. "I missed you."

"I missed you too, dear," Catelyn replied, one frail arm gripping her daughter with as much strength as the older woman could muster. "Oh, it's so good to see you. Ned wanted me to fly down to visit you and Sansa, but I thought I would let you two enjoy your time away from us while you had it."

"Although Sansa probably has the rest of her life away," Arya commented, as she pulled back from the hug. She thought of Joffrey and flinched, covering it by smiling at her mother again as Catelyn put the car into drive and pulled away from the airport's curb. Her mother didn't seem to notice her discomfort, and turning her head to Rickon only earned her a good-natured stuck-out tongue.

The air was much cooler in Winterfell than King's Landing, enough so that she would have needed a jacket to take a walk. Having been stuck in the humid stick of early Southern summer for two months already, however, Arya cracked her window and relished the chill zipping between her fingers. As Catelyn drove onto the highway hugging the southern side of Winterfell, Arya stared at the short, glittering buildings of the city as they rushed by, bright in the afternoon sun.

"I know you say you hated it," Catelyn said to Arya as she drove, "but how was your school year really? Tell me about it, you haven't called me about _anything_!"

"I really didn't need anything, Mom," she answered. "But it was really _that bad_. I _hate _King's Landing. I'm seriously thinking about transferring for next year."

Catelyn glanced over briefly at her daughter in concern. "I'm sorry to hear that. What was wrong with it? Sansa had the most wonderful time her first year in King's Landing—"

"Blah," Arya gagged, shaking her head. She did not want to be compared to Sansa. If any man had every hit _her_, she would have broken both his legs and half of his vertebrae. "I'm definitely not Sansa, Mom."

"What was wrong with it? The classes? The campus?"

"I think it was just King's Landing, in general." She removed her fingers from the window, remembering the sour taste of the capitol air, the cruel downward turn of the cityfolk's lips, the angry insults delivered the few times she'd made Joffrey's acquaintance. Come to think of it, the only good thing that had truly come out of King's Landing was Gendry. _If he plays well_, she reminded herself.

"Well, that's too bad," Catelyn said, her voice a little disappointed. That would have annoyed Arya before she left for college, but she realized now that the disappointment was not directed at her. Catelyn was born of the South and Arya of the North, and while Sansa had been able to make the adaption like the good daughter Arya was stubbornly rooted in her father's values, her home's values, more than her mother's. Even if Catelyn wasn't entirely pleased by it, Arya accepted it and loved herself as she was—even if no one else seemed to, except perhaps Jon and her father—and didn't want it to change.

"Where's Dad?" she asked.

"At home, working," Catelyn replied, her lips tightening slightly. "I have his oath that he'll be at dinner tonight, and he's sleeping in the garage if he breaks it."

Rickon grunted from the back seat. "He's been busy lately."

"How come?" Arya asked, craning around in her seat to face her little brother.

"He hasn't told you?" Catelyn prompted, sounding genuinely shocked. When Arya shook her head, Catelyn raised her eyebrows and continued, "Robert Baratheon died a few weeks ago in the hospital."

"I knew that," Arya said. It had been a quiet if estranged day in baseball, with everyone not quite knowing if they should mourn the furious slugger or sigh in relief. "Everyone knows that."

"Yes, well, your father..." Her mother trailed off, her expression growing distant and her lips twitching. Catelyn Stark appeared to battle with herself for a long moment before placing both of her hands firmly on the wheel and focusing on not looking at her daughter. "I think I'd best let him explain it. He'll do a better job of letting you know anyway."

"What is it?" Arya asked, concerned about something her mother was hesitant to tell her.

"Your father will explain," Catelyn repeated, trying to smile at her daughter. "Just be patient. All will be revealed in time."

Arya wasn't entirely sure what to say to that, but slumped back into her seat with her arms crossed, realizing she would learn nothing more from her mother. Catelyn may have been born a Tully from Riverrun far to the South of Winterfell, but she had learned the cold hard stone-face of the Starks in her marriage to Ned.

"How's Bran?" she asked her mother.

Catelyn stirred behind the wheel. "You'll see him."

"I know. But I'm still asking how he is."

"He's Bran. Braver than he looks, smarter than he thinks." Catelyn darted a sideways glance at Arya, a dark look that spread across her face with a fury that was _much _more Stark than Tully. "And what he doesn't need is being made a big deal of. He's doing fine without anyone having to dote on him and he prefers it that way. The last thing he needs is to be treated special."

"I didn't plan it," Arya said. "I was _wondering_ how he_ was_. No need to look at me like I'm the Others taking him."

"Sorry," Catelyn replied, sounding genuine. She sighed. "I'm just so proud of how he's handling it. You'd think he'd been in his condition his entire life, and it's still only been a few years..."

"Soon," Arya snapped, staring out the window so she wouldn't have to see the disgruntled look Catelyn's face would no-doubt adopt, "_you're _going to have to stop babying him. Acting like he's a hero is just as bad as me treating him special, you know. If you accept it, it'll be easier for him to accept it."

"I have accepted it. I accepted it a long time ago. We all did, as a family. It's made it easier for him, and I'm very proud also of the way we've all been there for him through this time."

Arya glanced at Rickon again, who had his own attention out of the window. Not for the first time, she wondered how much attention the youngest Stark received at home, considering that his two oldest brothers were professional baseball players, his two sisters attended university a thousand miles away, and his only remaining sibling was paralyzed from the waist down. Next to those cases, Rickon was woefully forgettable, and from what Arya knew about her youngest brother she couldn't imagine he would take any neglect happily. If he was upset at their conversation concerning Bran, however, he did not indicate his displeasure, posing a blank face as he inspected whatever he was inspecting out of the window. Arya was not even sure he had heard their conversation at all, so lost did he appear in his thoughts.

"Sansa tells me there's no man in your life."

Arya rolled her eyes and groaned as she turned back to her mother. "Why is everyone so interested in that? Sansa, Jon, now you."

She noticed the vigor with which Catelyn gripped the steering wheel at the mention of Arya's half-brother, but to her credit her voice was still enthusiastic as she answered, "You're off to college. It's an exciting part of your life, and full of all sorts of new things."

"I feel," Arya said, rubbing at the bridge of her nose, "like this is going to turn into some conversation about safe sex or some stupid shit that I don't need to hear."

"Arya!" her mother exclaimed, glancing in the rearview mirror at Rickon. The boy was completely oblivious. Her mother huffed and glared at her behind the sunglasses, to which she only delivered an indifferent shrug, before shaking her head. "I was really just wondering because I actually think it would be nice if you found someone you liked. You could use someone to open up to once in a while. You're always so pent up and angry. Sometimes it worries your father and me."

"I am not pent up and angry!" Arya growled. "I'm frustrated because you all treat me like I'm a different being! And you're always trying to shape me up to be a proper little _lady_." She sneered the word as though merely uttering it would make her vomit. Remembering the way Gendry had mocked her with it gave her pause, since his mocking had been playful, but even so she hated whenever her mother tried to divert her to other, stupid, girly things when she was trying to tag along with her brothers and father for a game.

"That's not true," her mother said calmly. "I'll admit, I would like you to be at least a little more respectful of your manners, especially when we are in mixed company with friends, but I accept you for who you are. And the _only_ reason I asked was because I'm an excited mother curious about her daughter's love life."

"Yeah, well, I don't have any."

Her mother pouted, as much as a regal, middle-aged woman could. "No one? Not even someone you're interested in?"

"Nope."

"That's too bad, although I suppose that means your attention on your studies is a good thing. The gods know, Sansa was already head over heels for Joffrey when she was your age, and she did not get good grades her first two terms..."

Thinking of her sister in the hands of that slimeball made Arya's fists clench, and she gritted her teeth. "Like I said, I'm not Sansa."

"I know," her mother said after a pause, glancing over at her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't keep comparing you two. I know it's not fair and I really don't mean to. You are your own person and you are just as beautiful and perfect in a different way."

It was a conversation they'd had a million times, a conversation Catelyn had seemingly contradicted a million times, and a conversation Arya had grudgingly forgiven her mother for neglecting a million times, because she was still Arya's mother and Arya had a surprisingly strong love for her family. Nevertheless, the fine muscles of her chest clenched with distaste at the way her mother addressed her despite her claim of acceptance, as though she were a burden or unfulfilled expectations that was tolerated.

_Sorry, I'm not Sansa_, Arya growled silently at her mother. To both her mother and Jon, she mentally added, _Sorry I'm not gooey enough to fall in love with someone. Sorry no one's stupid enough to fall in love with me_.

But she was in Winterfell, home for the summer, free of obligations for at least three months. It was no time to mope; it was the best time of her year. So she shoved away her self-conscious annoyance, pity, and discomfort and decided to enjoy it, easily diverting the conversation towards something that steered very far clear of anything related to her or her love life.

Her mother fell for the shift in subject and mostly did the chatting as she finished the drive back to Stark Manor, far on the west side of Winterfell. Arya grinned as Catelyn turned down the long, stone driveway that led up to the base of the large house-mansion thing at the very end of the way. Arya glanced about at the trees and their bloomed spring leaves, sighing at the familiar beauty of her home. The house itself stood stoutly atop a short hill, its two wings and lone tower sticking out over the trees. Ned Stark refused more servants than a maid to ease Catelyn's household duties, but even so the manor was too small to support too many people. Arya had always liked that it was just the perfect size for her family; neither too crowded nor too empty.

Catelyn pulled into the leftmost door of the three-car garage and turned off the vehicle. The two Stark children all bounced out of the car with equal eagerness, jumping to the trunk to retrieve Arya's suitcases before quickly heading indoors after their smiling mother. Arya paused a moment in the Stark Manor entrance hall, enjoying the familiar smell of home for a few moments, before she began to hoist her things up the staircase towards her room, ignoring whatever last words her mother was shouting after her.

She slammed open her door that was already slightly ajar and rushed in, already knowing who would be there waiting for her.

Off of her bed leaped Nymeria, barking with joy as she barreled over Arya and pinned her to the ground, licking her face happily as she laughed. Arya rubbed her fur and looked up into the husky canine's face. "I missed you, girl."

Nymeria responded by licking most of her face again, only abating after another bout of laughs and Arya rolling over so she was able to get back to her feet. She felt as though she had been reunited with a long lost friend after years apart, even though it had only been a few months. Judging from Nymeria's energy and playfulness, she felt the same about Arya. The youngest Stark daughter could only continue to grin as her dog followed her over to the bed, where she set her bags down and scratched Nymeria's ears. It was very good to be home.

She spent the next hour or so returning her belongings to their proper places around her room, arranging her room so that it fit her desires at the same time. Nymeria pounced on her bed, where the ferocious dog was not supposed to go, and watched Arya calmly as she went about her sorting process. Every now and again, Arya paused to grin and pet Nymeria for a few moments before continuing her arrangement. When everything was acceptable and she felt truly at home again, she lied down on her bed for a few minutes and was simply lazy with Nymeria.

When she finally stood up again, she itched Nymeria's ears and instructed the dog to stay. Then, padding into the hallway, she quietly snuck back along the landing, around to the opposite side of the staircase where the four rooms of her brothers were.

Tiptoeing to the third-farthest room, she paused at the ajar door, confirming that the meager amount of noise from inside told her that Bran was in his room. Tentatively, she raised a knuckle and only considered going back to her room for a moment before she knocked.

"Enter," came her brother's non-expressive voice, and she pushed open the door.

His room was the same pristine perfection it had been the last time she'd been there. One wall was dedicated to posters of baseball players, another one a solid line of bookshelves stuffed to the brim, against which his bed sat, and the third and final a technological array of intelligence Arya had never dared to try and tackle. The only sign of disorder was near his dresser, on the baseball poster wall, where a few clothes made an unseemly pile on the carpet, and where a baseball mitt and bat made for little league had obviously been tossed carelessly. Arya noticed, however, that they were in the very same position they'd been in the last time she'd seen them, and it still pained her every time she saw them lying in her brother's room, never to be used again.

Bran himself was seated in a large and plushy chair before three keyboards and three different computer screens, his wheelchair resting a pace away within easy reach. On one of his screens he appeared to be battling medieval attempts to conquer the world with magical brilliance; on the next he was destroying online competition in a baseball video game; on the third it looked as though he was five pages into a research paper and hastily adding to the information with one hand.

He stopped all activity when Arya walked in the room, and a smile appeared on his face as he brushed his long black hair out of his eyes to greet her. "Arya!"

She smiled, and strode across the room, leaning down into the chair to give her brother a tight hug. Pulling back, she decided that he too had grown in her absence. If he had stood, he would be taller than she was, now. Except that he would never stand again. He was doomed forever to be shorter than his family.

Instead of voicing such thoughts, though, she said, "How are you, Bran? It's been forever and a day since I've seen you."

"Not nearly so long," he replied, and she grimaced. "But still too long. If you went on skype more we would see each other a whole lot more. But _no_, you have all this so-called _school work _you have to do..."

"I'm being serious about that, you know."

"Yeah, right, I knew you when you were in high school and you do as little as you possibly can."

Arya sighed, knowing it was true, also knowing that all she really cared about was sports in high school and how her brother was too young to understand. Biting back that thought, she said, "How has your school been? Rickon and Mom wouldn't say a word."

His brows crinkled, and he almost frowned before holding his happy expression. So far as Arya could tell. "School is just like it always is. I'm..." He grinned sheepishly. "I'll probably be through enough classes between online and attending that I can graduate by the end of next year."

Arya's jaw dropped. "What? That's awesome! You can be off to college... in two years! Wow, that's great, Bran!"

Bran shrugged. He always did that, downplaying his accomplishments. Even before the incident and the introduction of the wheelchair once he had left the hospital, Bran had always excelled at his studies. It was no real surprise that he would finish high school over two years early, but Arya was still excited that he would do it; with a measure of guilt, she acknowledged that anything Bran did would excite her, as long as it didn't involve any measure of his condition. "Just means we'll all be leaving Rickon alone in the house. Mom and Dad will dote over him once we're gone. Besides, I'm not really sure..." She watched her brother hesitate, watched his eyes become distant and glare off to the side for a few moments. Finally, he looked back at her and seemed to shake his head. "Well, we'll talk about that later. It's good to have you home, Arya. Sansa, I can live without for a good long while, but it's not Stark Manor unless you're here."

Arya laughed at his description of Sansa and smacked him on the arm. "It's my job to bitch about our sister. Do you know where Father is?"

Bran reached for his wheelchair and then stopped, his hands twitching and his eyes glancing back at his computer screens. "Probably in his study, still. He's been holed up in there all week. He didn't go to any of the games, which is akin to the world exploding. Robb sent me a text wondering where he's been, but I really don't know what to say. Dad's really busy with something, that was all I could say." He poked her in the arm, then. "If anyone wants to go and prod the wolf, it's you. Maybe you can figure out what the deal is. Mom's lips are sealed, too."

"Okay," Arya said, and patted her brother's arm before turning for the door. "I'll figure out what's up. I'll see you at dinner, okay? And the first game that's not a school night, I'm dragging you down to the Great Keep. Just a head's up."

Bran's groan sounded just a tad too serious for her liking, but the usual willingness was still there, as well, so Arya let the matter drop as she reentered the hallway and pulled Bran's door closed behind her.

Ned Stark's study was on the seldom-used third floor, a level reserved otherwise for the game room—which had gotten surprisingly dusty since Jon and Robb moved out—and a film room that Arya frequented, especially when her father was looking at prospects or game footage. In the old days, before Ned and his brothers had made the Starks into a baseball-obsessed family, the rooms had been parlors that housed Arya's grandmother and guests, but those days were long over. Now, the remaining rooms either served as attics or quiet sitting rooms.

Arya climbed the stairs to the third floor eagerly, ready to see her father again. She walked shortly down the hall to where the door of her father's study stood wide open. Ned Stark sat behind his desk wearing slacks, in apparent conversation with her mother, who sat with her hands folded in her lap directly across from him. The window behind him cast light over his silhouette, making him appear rather holy.

As she always did when she entered, Arya paused at the door and glanced at the wall opposite the window with a grin. Her father's Hall-of-Fame-worthy Direwolves' jersey hung there encased in glass, the number "23" displayed proudly for the world to see. It was the crown piece of the room, next to the few shelves of books and the couch against another wall. Arya remembered one time when she was young, when her father had removed it from its case and draped it around her shoulders, the jersey so big that it obscured her arms and nearly touched the ground. She smiled wider as she remembered Ned's laugh, and the safety of his arms as he swept his little Arya up into them...

The halting of the conversation brought her back to reality. Her father looked up and his lips formed a small smile when he noticed her in the doorway, and her mother turned around to identify the disturbance. Ned rose from his chair and Arya quickly crossed the room to fling herself into his arms.

"Welcome home, little wolf," he said when he set her back on the ground. "It's been a lonelier place without you."

"Thanks," she murmured, stepping back and moving towards the other seat next to her mother.

"I was just telling your mother that I mean to snag Robb over here for dinner one night."

"Then all we would need is Sansa to have a normal family dinner again," Catelyn added. The absence of Jon in her warm voice was conspicuous. "I have missed all of you, all grown up and so forth."

"No need to get so sentimental," Arya grumbled. "I'm home. Don't freak out."

"Don't blame your mother for caring," her father said, sitting himself back down behind his desk. "It's no easy thing to see your kids grow up and leave the home. Just wait until you have kids of your own."

Arya restrained her snort, silently speculating with herself about whether or not she would ever have the time or patience to have children, and with what man, for that matter. Instead of saying such a thing, aloud, however, she switched gears and attacked with the question that was her real reason for seeking out her father in his study. "What's going on with Robert Baratheon? Mom said something was up after his death but she wouldn't tell me what it was."

Ned opened his mouth and then shut it again, glancing uneasily at his wife. He cleared his throat and paused for a moment. "Well... you know he died last week. I flew to Storm's End for the funeral, after the body was taken there. That's where Robert grew up... yes, I know you know that," he hurriedly said as she opened her mouth to say exactly that. "I flew down for the funeral and the will-reading, just because I feel like I owed it to Robert after the years of our friendship. I wanted to make sure he got all the affairs in order."

"Okay," Arya said. "So what are you so busy with that has to deal with Baratheon?"

"When..." Ned shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Catelyn as if pleading for assistance. "When I went down there, it was also because the baseball world threatened to change completely depending on what Robert did with the Monarchs."

"What do you mean?" Arya asked.

"Classically, they would be passed along to Joffrey. Which obviously would cause an uproar since he's a member of the team, which the league office would never let happen, anyway."

"Why wouldn't his wife just take over the duties? It's her team now, isn't it?" As soon as she said it, Arya shivered. The few times she'd met Robert Baratheon were more than she'd met Cersei Lannister, but the golden bitch was far lower on her list of uncomfortable people than Robert. The last time they'd been in the same room, Cersei had glared at Arya for several minutes as if trying to figure out what kind of animal she was.

"Cersei Lannister does not have the gall or the brains to run a major league baseball team," her father growled, shaking his head, mostly to himself. "Which presents a little bit of a problem for Robert, you see. Neither of them, Cersei or Joffrey, could inherit the team, and a good thing, because Joffrey's more Lannister than Baratheon and you can be sure Tywin will be leaning over his daughter's shoulder to seize hold of any opportunity he can get. Can you imagine, the Lannisters controlling _two_ major league baseball teams?"

Arya very well could. From Catelyn's crossed arms, even her mother felt that such a power coalition in the major leagues would be a bad idea. "It would be horrible." She waited for her father to continue, to give the resolution, but finally grew impatient. "So? Why are you involved?"

Her father's expression darkened in thought. "Well... it seems that Robert somehow, through his drunken haze, managed to foresee his difficulty, and—in traditional Robert Baratheon fashion—pegged the responsibility on someone else."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he tried to give me temporary ownership of the Monarchs," Ned said grimly. "Until Joffrey retires or Myrcella comes of age. Whichever comes first."

Arya blinked, processing what he had said, and then turned to gauge her mother's expression to make sure she had heard right. Glancing back at her father, she couldn't help but bellow, "He made _you _the owner of the Monarchs?"

"Temporary owner," her father repeated. He grimaced. "Just like Robert, throwing me all his responsibilities. He's probably drinking himself to a second death in Hell, laughing at me right now, while I'm here to fix all the things he should have taken care of. And Tywin Lannister sure wasn't going to let this go by without trying to get his lion claws into the Monarchs." He paused for a moment before looking at Arya. "He's taking the will to court to contest the validity, and I have to go an fight him for it. Gods, and I don't even want to do it."

"Then why do you do it, Ned?" Catelyn sighed, shaking her head. "Why do you keep doing this? It's torturing you and it's keeping you away from your family."

"I have to, Cat," Ned said. "I have to do it, for baseball."

"For baseball," Arya's mother spat, averting her eyes from her husband. "Not for your family, always for baseball! Not when he kept you away from me from half a year at a time! No, sir, not when it took away our son's ability to _walk_!"

"Are we going to have this argument again?" Ned said quietly. Dangerously quietly. Arya wanted nothing more to bolt for the door. She might have made it, too; her parents seemed to have forgotten that she was there.

Catelyn scoffed. "We are going to have it again and again and again until I win! I'm not giving up on this. It has taken too much from me!"

"Gods, Catelyn, baseball has given you and I everything we—"

Her father stopped midsentence as a rasping came on the study door. The three Starks swung around to face it, her two parents very haphazardly.

To Arya's great surprise and relief—and confusion—Luwin stepped into the study after a short hesitation, clutching a manila folder in his hands and hosting a very wary gaze as he looked between Ned and Catelyn Stark. "My lord. My lady. Am I disturbing you?"

"No," Ned said, his voice nearly a growl. "Your interruption is very much welcome. Though shouldn't you be at the airport by now?" He checked his watch. "The flight leaves in just over an hour."

"Of course, I am on my way there, actually," Luwin said, stepping farther into the room and holding up the manila folder. "I just stopped by to drop this off."

Ned took it with a raised eyebrow. "What is it?"

Luwin dipped a short, annoying bow to Arya. "My lady. Good to see you again." While she seethed at the title and focused on the fact that she didn't want to harm Luwin because she liked him, the manager turned back to her father and answered, "The most recent minor league statistics of Gendry Waters. I thought I might deliver them personally."

Arya's mind went blank, and she sat up straight in her chair. "Gendry?"

Luwin eyed her again, and if she hadn't have known better, she would have sworn there was a glint of amusement in his gaze. "Yes, the young pitcher, himself. I thought you would like to see his most recent developments, my lord."

Ned had opened the folder, and was leafing through the sheets that were inside. Slowly, his eyebrows rose, his expression having lost all the mirth it had contained but a few moments before. "This is... you're sure these numbers are right?"

"I talked to Halys Hornwood himself," Luwin replied, the ghost of a smirk touching his wry old lips. "He thought the boy was hypnotizing the hitters or something else equally as nonsensical."

"Hornwood?" Arya repeated, surprised to hear the manager of the Direwolves' Double-A affiliate mentioned. Incredulously, she gasped, "You've got Gendry pitching at _Double-A_ already?"

"Gendry?" Catelyn Stark repeated sternly, glaring at her daughter. "Who's Gendry?"

Ned Stark groaned, closing the folder and dropping it on his desk. "Too many conversations at once." He looked at his wife, his face clearly betraying his expectation to be murdered by her at any moment. "Gendry's a prospect that I signed in King's Landing a few months ago off of the streets."

"A prospect _I _signed off the streets!" Arya blurted out, glaring at her father.

"That's funny." Ned smirked. "I remember you expressly refusing to come to the signing. I also remember that I handed him the pen."

Catelyn held up a hand to stop their bickering before it could throw them off on a tangent once again. "How does Arya know this Gendry?"

"I found him," Arya said, and then, for inexplicable reasons, flushed completely under the startled eye of her mother. How her words could have been misconstrued, she wasn't quite sure, but she hastily added, "I was walking through King's Landing one day and saw him playing in the streets. Then, he was fixing Sansa's car and I met him."

Catelyn Stark blinked. "Oh, so he knows Sansa?"

"No." Arya shook her head. "That was just coincidence."

"Long story short," Ned broke in, casting a glare at Arya that clearly told her she should be grateful for his intervention, "Arya found a prospect in the streets and was impressed by him. She made me come to see what he could do, and then I showed Luwin. Mutually, we decided to offer him a contract and send him to Blackhaven."

"Yeah," Arya said, screwing up her face. "To Blackhaven. I thought he was in Blackhaven, not Hornwood."

"He was in Blackhaven," Luwin announced, stepping back into the conversation, "for the better part of April. I'm mildly surprised you were not aware, Miss Stark. I would have thought you would've followed his career with great interest." He raised a challenging eyebrow that was lost on everyone but her and then turned back to Ned. "He threw ten outings at Single-A, and after his third outing he did not surrender a run, and only three hits, to go with sixteen strikeouts. I only watched film of him once, but the hitters looked completely lost. His mechanics have changed a lot. Jack-Be-Lucky has taught him well, it would seem, and he's found his slider. At Single-A, it seemed he was virtually unhittable."

"So we decided to promote him to Hornwood," Arya's father said, sifting back through the papers of the manila folder. "This is... rather unexpected, Luwin. I never anticipated that he would... do _this_."

"What is it?" Arya said frantically. From her father's tone, she thought that Gendry must have done something stupid. Instantly, her mind concocted a hundred bull-headed, idiotic ways that he could have messed up. Like her father apparently thought, she had imagined he would have been smarter than to waste the chance he was getting. As Luwin had said, she hadn't followed his rise, but it was not from disinterest as he had apparently assumed. Instead, a combination of not expecting him to do so well so early and remembering the uncomfortably bare moment they had shared with each other had kept her away from her usual blitz of online box scores.

Her father, however, looked anything but displeased as he leafed through the folder. "He's been in Hornwood since the beginning of May. In the last two weeks, he's thrown in _ten _games. Twelve innings. 24 strikeouts." Ned's mouth shut noticeably and he looked between Arya and Luwin once. "And he hasn't surrender a single hit."

Arya gaped, and had to remember how to speak. "That's almost impossible."

"Thus the reason I brought it before you, my lord," Luwin said, clasping his hands and slowering his chin to his chest. "I thought you would not believe them in a moment unless it was I who delivered them. And personally. Not to mention, I want to have a frank discussion concerning the boy's future with our organization."

"What do you mean?" Arya demanded quickly.

Luwin glanced at her, and then cleared his throat before turning back to her father. "My lord..."

"She's fine, Luwin," Ned said, grinning at his daughter. "She deserves a say in it more than I, in fact. It's not like she won't find out in a minute or two anyway."

Luwin glanced once more at Arya and gave an appeasing, kind smile, and then once at her mother, before finally turning back to his boss. "Well, my lord, the boy is clearly having unprecedented success. He's gone under the radar so far because absolutely no one knew of him, of course, but Hornwood's papers have noticed and it's only a matter of time before other general managers and managers catch wind of it and come to investigate him." Luwin seemed to be trying to say something more with his eyes, but whatever it was, Arya had no idea what it meant. The manager continued, "Our secret weapon won't be very secret."

"Not that that matters at all," Ned replied, crossing his arms. "A secret weapon's only good the first time anyway."

"Perhaps," Luwin said, the mysterious glint still in his eye. "However, I have two things to comment on. Firstly, our one-year tender may be incredibly short of sight if he can manage to maintain his level of success, and on a higher plane. It may be prudent to lock him down for longer, except..." The manager left the sentence hanging, opening his hands in just so a way to leave a message unspoken.

Arya narrowed her eyes as her father flinched, apparently having received whatever signal Luwin was transmitting, but from the equal look of confusion on her mother's face Arya was not the only one in the dark. "Except what?"

"Nothing," her father said quickly. Far too quickly for Arya's liking, but he pushed forward in the conversation so quickly it was forgotten. "Understood. I'll worry about his contract years. What's the second thing you want to say?"

Luwin paused for a moment, as if carefully choosing his words. "Well, my lord, Chayle's elbow has him on the shelf for a few days, and Hullen's not yet sure what's wrong with it. Needless to say, he's been pitching horribly anyway. The gods know, some time off would be good for the boy. I sure as hell wouldn't put in the game if I didn't have an option, but we have lost twelve of our last seventeen, and the bullpen is ailing. If your son wasn't hitting three-fifty, we'd have drowned in the division long ago. As it is, we're barely keeping afloat."

Ned raised a hand to stop the manager's words, nodding impatiently. "What are you suggesting by all this, then, Luwin?"

"Place Chayle on the 15-day disabled list," Luwin responded tentatively. "Once Hullen figures out what's wrong, he might need it anyway, and beyond that he might benefit from some time off to let him find his faith again. In any case, putting him on the DL would open a roster spot."

"You want to bring Gendry up to the majors," Arya murmured, not asking a question. Luwin nodded, and her heart began to beat faster. _Gendry, in Winterfell! I'm nineteen, and I seriously recruited a major league pitcher!_

"Hang on," Ned said, and just as quickly her high was crushed. "I'll grant you that these are incredible figures, but still... pulling him directly to the majors is a big step. We can't be sure he'll handle it like we need him to."

"I think he can," Luwin said simply. "As does your daughter, I imagine. She spoke very highly of him when we signed him."

Arya jumped at being addressed, but leaped into the fray without hesitation. "He can do it, I'm sure of it. He's tough. And stubborn. He'll adjust quickly, and be fine."

Both of her parents turned to glare at her, although she suspected each had their separate reasons. Ned grunted and said, "You only knew him for two days, Arya, when he gave us his tryout. You can't possibly know how he'll react to being thrown into the highest level of baseball with almost no prior experience."

"He's got plenty of prior experience!" Arya protested, jabbing a finger at the manila folder. "He's got a month at Single-A where he apparently handled his business, and now weeks at a higher level where he has _shut down _hitters. If he's rolling, with that much confidence, it would be a mistake _not _to call him up, especially with a wide open roster spot."

Ned sat for a moment, staring at her without expression. In the lull, Luwin seized the opportunity to stir and say, "Usually, I like to nurture prospects, too, my lord, but in this case I agree with your daughter. All things considered..." Again, the strange look of understanding passed between him and her father, and Arya bit her lip to restrain her irritation at not knowing what it meant. "...I do believe that it is our best interests to see what Gendry Waters can do for the Direwolves as soon as possible, and if his current success is any indication, he's ready."

The two most powerful men in the Winterfell franchise regarded each other for a moment and then Ned stood up. Scratching at his beard, he rounded his chair and stepped to the window, the muscles of his arms hardening beneath the t-shirt as he clenched his hands behind his back. Arya watched her father stare over his cold domain, his thoughts unknown to all but him. She imagined, however, that whatever was passing silently between him and Luwin was foremost among them, and she may have given her vintage Barristan Selmy rookie baseball card to learn what it was. Her father was as cold as the tundra when he didn't want to share what was on his mind, however, and she knew there was no deal that could have persuaded him to reveal to her his private thoughts.

Ned sighed and turned back to Luwin. "You're trying to appeal to me by likening his rise to mine."

Luwin's face did not change expression. He pointed at the manila folder. "I didn't make those stats. The boy threw the ball by himself."

"Still," Ned grunted. "I'm taking a risk with him. What if he trips himself up? What if he's not ready?"

"Then we lose eight hundred thousand dollars that we spent on him anyway, and you don't re-sign him," Luwin replied. "He might turn the tide for the worse in a few games, but it's nothing we're not dealing with already."

"Dad," Arya said, leaning towards the desk. Her father turned around to look at her gravely, and she paused for a long moment before continuing, "Please. Give him his chance. He won't let you down, I swear it."

She wasn't sure why she said what she had, and a moment later she thought maybe she really had overstepped her reach. Blinking, she tried to figure out where this gigantic surge of confidence and pride in Gendry had come from. He was her ticket to fame, of course, the one _she _had discovered and vouched for, but even if he failed, it wouldn't a black spot on her record. Besides, he was _completely _unproven, despite his apparent minor league success. She had seen a hundred pitchers before him have beginner's luck before entering a rapid downward spiral that they could never recover from. Glaring at the upside-down stat sheet on her father's desk, she realized there was nothing that could set him apart yet.

In the space of a moment, those thoughts came crashing down on her, and she looked up towards her father, who still watched her pensively, to take back her plea. Whatever she told her mouth to say, however, what came out was, "I know he's got it in him. It's who he is. He can do it. I know he can."

Ned Stark crossed his arms, looking at her, appearing speculative. Several times, he opened his mouth as if to say something and then snapped it shut again. His eyes smoldered with an internal battle she couldn't even begin to guess at.

After a long moment, he sighed and slapped his desk lightly. "All right. I'll call Hornwood and tell him to put Gendry on the first bus to Winterfell. What is that? A six-hour drive?"

Arya's heart soared; she thought it a rather drastic reaction to her prospect getting called up to the majors, but she decided it was simply due to her first find achieving success so fast. After all, it couldn't possibly be anything else.

"Just about," Luwin answered thoughtfully. "Would you like to fly him out to Harrenhal after us? We won't be back for three days, otherwise."

Ned shook his head. "No. I want his first outing to be at home, where he can acclimate better to the major league environment and his teammates without having to worry about being jeered off the field." He stirred and seemed to remember his wife and daughter were still there. "We'll talk about the rest later. I'll call you tomorrow to discuss it. I'll call Hornwood now. You've got a plane to catch."

"That I do," Luwin acknowledged as Ned turned away, bowing his head respectfully. "Thank you, my lord. My ladies."

After the manager had taken his leave, Ned Stark swiveled back to his daughter and grinned. "All right, little wolf. I'll trust you with your young pitcher." His face momentarily turned grim. "However you think you know him, though, I hope he can stand up to that confidence. He'll be a Direwolf in only a few days."

"He can do it, Dad," Arya said. "He's got greatness in him."

"Well, I don't know so much about greatness," her father replied, "but all I need from him is his best effort. If he gives me that, I'll live with whatever else comes with it. Now, if you will both excuse me—" He glanced apologetically at his wife, but even Arya knew he was cleverly escaping the argument Luwin had interrupted. "—I have a phone call to make."

Arya rose obediently and headed for the door. Her mother lingered for a moment more and may have murmured something coarse and sharp at Ned beneath her breath, but then she strode briskly to the door and Arya shut the door behind them both, leaving Ned to his business.

They had barely taken a step when Catelyn glanced over at her pointedly. "So who is this Gendry, exactly?"

"I found him in a car shop," Arya answered. "That's why he was working on Sansa's car. He said he'd never played organized baseball before but I saw that he could throw gas, so I dragged Dad to his apartment so he could see it."

"And how exactly did you know where he lived?"

"Phonebook," she replied innocently, peering over at her mother's raised eyebrow. "What?"

Catelyn surveyed her for a few seconds. "Are you _sure _there is no man in your life?"

It took a moment for Arya to catch her mother's drift. "What, seriously? Come on. He's just a prospect. You know me better than that."

"Well, I don't know about that," Catelyn replied. "At least insofar as to assume you'd _never _be interested in a man." She paused. "And you seemed quite intent on the young man in question in there."

"It's just 'cause I was the one who recruited him. That's all."

"Oh, really?" Catelyn pressed.

Arya rolled her eyes and fully turned to her mother. "Really. Seriously, I don't even know him. Besides, he's from inner-city King's Landing and I'm from upper-echelon Winterfell. The only thing we have in common is that we both love baseball."

They both paused on the landing, and her mother regarded her sternly for a moment. Arya imagined her mother's stomach clenching at the very mention of the name, Bran's incident and her family's conflicts most likely foremost in a roiling mass of turbulent thought. Then, to Arya's great surprise, in a whimsical voice, Catelyn said, "And since when is that not enough?"

Arya had absolutely no idea what to say to that, and her mother walked away without another word.


	9. Chapter 8

**8**

The long bus ride gave Gendry a long and satisfying amount of time to collect his thoughts, and also presented an opportunity to reflect on the last month and a half of his life. On the initial journey to Hornwood, by a plane to White Harbor and then a bus the rest of the way, he had experienced a brief and startling attack of anxiety, during which he panicked and tried to convince himself that the only place he belonged was in a car shop, that he was way over his head, that he had no idea what he was getting himself into. It had taken a long stay in the lavatory and many repeated nonsense phrases on the bus to calm himself down, but thankfully by the time he had arrived at Hornwood for his assignment, he was composed and ready to play baseball.

And he had shined like the southern sun he had been born beneath.

It was to Gendry's immense surprise that his body was perfectly at ease as he climbed on the bus to Winterfell. He imagined at first it was just a fluke, and that once he got closer he would start to feel the nerves, but they never came. Not even when he opened his eyes and craned his stiff neck in the early morning sun and noticed the flat towers of Winterfell glittering on the western horizon.

The ride into the city was quiet. There were only five other passengers on the bus, three of them still fast asleep, and Gendry sat in the back, listening to the music player he had finally deigned to buy in Hornwood with his most recent paycheck. Slow jazz and quiet blues were his companions as the bus rolled into town, an environment Gendry had never before witnessed. The buildings were all glass and stone, and the people walking the streets were visibly gruffer and grayer than those he had seen in the South. The streets were cleaner, the architecture was brighter, and he counted on one hand the number of homeless people he saw on the ride-in, a number he could have equated in King's Landing on a single street corner.

He knew Ned Stark lived in Winterfell with his team, but the owner of the Direwolves had not arranged to meet him in any way. The team was down in Harrenhal, anyway, finishing up a daygame cap to a three-game series before flying right back to Winterfell for a divisional showdown with the Greywater Lizards. The details over a hotel room had been issued to him before he left Hornwood, seeing as the team and his permanent residence couldn't be completed until the next day when the Direwolves returned, anyway, but when Gendry disembarked the bus downtown with only a single duffel on his shoulder, he didn't hail a taxi to take him to his hotel. Instead he remembered the general direction that he had seen the Great Keep popping out between downtown structures and, hoisting the duffel over his shoulder, set out in that direction.

A half-hour was all it took for him to find it. The stadium wasn't as grand as the Dragonpit, but it seemed a measure more majestic, almost as though it were floating in the middle of the city instead of digging into its foundation like the Dragonpit did in King's Landing. Massive columns of white stone lined the exterior, separated by gates, and complemented by glass panels and metal beams spanning the gaps. Large Direwolf logos were pasted against the bases, and posters of some of the Direwolves' more popular players ran height-ways up the columns. The sight, compared with the short commercial buildings and business offices, was difficult to miss.

The papers Halys Hornwood had passed him before leaving Double-A got him through a gate by way of a security guard making his lazy morning rounds. Gendry asked directions to the Direwolves' clubhouse, and ended up being shown by the security guard to the entrance, which was located on the concourse around the first-base side of the stadium. Gendry glanced down the tunnel towards the field before thanking the security guard, hoisting his duffel higher, and trudging alone down the dimly-hit passage that spiraled down into the clubhouse.

The usual array of rooms branched off from the hall as it opened up into a small antechamber. The facility was empty except for a man pushing a cart full of dirty laundry, who nodded at Gendry as he passed. Gendry looked down at himself, wearing cheap clothes he'd forced himself to buy even after coming into money and the jacket he'd had for years, and realized the man probably thought he was just another member of the staff. That actually drew a smile to his face; once a job hauling laundry was the _best _thing he could have hoped for, but instead he had seized his opportunity. Now, he...

_Now I'm a major league pitcher_.

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks, as if it was the first time he really realized what was happening. He braced for the nerves to slam into his chest and knock him on his ass, but to his additional surprise nothing happened. His mind processed the information, accepted it, and moved on. What was more, he didn't even feel his face scrunch up in concentration for it to happen. With a grin of pride, he wondered what Arya would—

He frowned. _I _have _to stop doing that._

Stepping back into motion, Gendry approached the open door labeled locker room and entered silently. He need not have worried about noise, for it was as empty as the hall had been, every other light turned off. The cubbies lining all four walls stood empty, the team and their jerseys still in Harrenhal playing the last game of their series. All were dark and bare except one, which stood directly and coincidentally below one of the shining lights. Gendry noticed it and felt his breath hitch as he saw what it held.

At the bottom of the cubby lay a pair of carefully-folded pants, next to a size-fits-all pair of compression shorts. A pair of long socks and a gleaming new set of spikes were also there. Dangling from a hanger in the ceiling of the cubby was a fitted, crisp hat bearing the snarling face of the team's namesake. A piece of masking tape inscribed with his last name had been placed above the locker, where all of the other cubbies had neat name plates other theirs, but Gendry could still hardly believe it was his. Stepping right before it, he dropped his duffel to the ground and reached into the cubby. His fingers pinched the slick fabric of the jersey that hung in the very center, eyes drifting across the "WATERS" sown expertly across the back above the larger number "5".

Standing there before the Direwolf jersey that had been made for _him_, Gendry found himself hastily wiping away tears and cursed himself. _Stop being such a fucking baby_, he scolded, but still couldn't help the swelling emotion inside of his chest. _It was an unlikely road to here. But you're not done. You've still got a long way to your dreams_.

Gripping the jersey one last time to make sure it was really there, he changed into sweat pants and a form-fitting t-shirt before lacing on the grubby cleats he'd brought from Hornwood. Then he snagged the hat from the cubby, folded the brim, and pulled it onto his head before grabbing his glove and marching out of the locker room. A bin of balls sat beside the door, and he grabbed a few of them on his way out.

He followed the tunnel farther through a single push-bar door that opened up into another short concrete hall and then ended in the dugout. Gendry paused for a moment as he emerged into it, glancing about its empty benches, and then leaped onto the field as the sun first peaked its way over the tall walls of the Great Keep.

The smell of freshly-cut grass was in the air. The capacity of the stadium didn't appear as large as it had in King's Landing, but the grandstands and outfield bleachers still towered over the field, accompanying the giant scoreboard towering beyond the center field wall. The infield dirt was raked but not dragged, obviously not yet prepared for the team's return, and the absence of the ground crew indicated it would be a job for later in the day, or else early in the morning the next day. A large mobile batting cage had been left encircling the home plate dirt, a pitching machine on wheels left beside it under a small cover.

Gendry slowly treaded his way away from the dugout, across the dirt baseline and onto the infield grass. He felt as though he were treading on someone's grave, strutting across the pristine lawn as he was, but he couldn't help himself; it felt as magical as it did intrusive.

The dirt of the mound was soft and yet somehow firm as he stepped up onto it, pressing his cleats against the rubber, testing the feel, before slipping on his glove and staring towards the plate. Acknowledging the fact that he was by no means warmed up, he came set and lobbed a short throw to the plate, relishing the sound as the ball smacked into the back of the batting cage. He repeated the motion and threw the second ball harder, and the third ball harder still, though it was still nowhere close to his actual velocity. Each time it made the same satisfying collision, a noise almost as good as a ball made when it hit the catcher's webbing just so.

The sun climbed over the edge of the stadium as he retrieved the balls and threw them a few more times, finally reaching his peak power and then cooling down so as not to throw his arm out. As he trod towards the cage to pick the balls up again, stretching his arm over his shoulder to keep it loose, his eyes fell on the pitching machine. A bat was slotted on the cage, begging to be used, and he hadn't hit since before he was signed. The mischievous thought came into his head, and, though he suspected he could get into trouble for using the machine without the permission of the crew, his status with the team notwithstanding, Gendry left the balls where they were at the plate and carted the machine to the mound.

It wasn't a difficult mechanism; he'd _built_ things more complex. It took him a few minutes to adjust it so that it was hurling mid-seventy fastballs down the middle of the plate, but once it was, with the ball bin plenty full, he rounded the pitching zone and pulled the bat off its slot, testing it in his hands as he watched the machine pelt a few pitches to gauge its speed and location.

When he felt comfortable, he stepped up to the plate and tapped it with the bat before bringing the lumber up to settle on his shoulder, waiting for the pitch.

He swung through the first one, cursing as he realized he was woefully out of practice. _Thank the gods I'm a reliever_, he thought, steeling himself back up for the second pitch. It ricocheted off of the handle, sending a sharp sting through his hands and arms as the ball arced lazily to spin out in the infield dirt around shortstop. By the fourth pitch, he managed to catch it off the barrel, a solid grounder right back up the middle, barely missing the pitching machine. The sixth pitch he lined on a frozen rope to center field, and the ninth short-hopped the left-center field fence. He grinned to himself as the tenth hit the left field wall halfway up, relishing in the intoxicating crack of the bat.

By the time the machine ran out of balls he had stopped counting. He released a breath as he glanced around the field and then stalked to the mound to turn off the machine before walking calmly out to pick up the twenty-plus balls he'd scattered about the outfield. He had lost one; it was located somewhere in the bleachers beyond left field, and it had felt orgasmic as he watched it sail beyond the fence for what would have been a home run.

The sun was high in the sky when he had lobbed all of the balls back in and loaded them back into the machine. Short of anything else to do and enjoying the familiar feeling of just hitting, he turned the machine back on and started at it again. He released his breath in whooshes as he began to target his zones, sending a pitch in turn to left field, then center field, and finally right, grunting satisfactorily as each ball went where it was supposed to. He watched a flyball bounce once on the warning track and bounce over the wall before gearing himself for the next pitch.

"So you can hit, too, huh?"

He swung and missed, so surprised he stumbled and nearly landed flat on his back. Spinning quickly, his head darted around frantically until he found the source of the voice. His jaw dropped.

Arya Stark was leaning against the railing in the first row of seats, wearing a tank top and shorts and smirking at him annoyingly. As he stared at her, trying to figure out if his imagination was running away with him, she tilted her head to the side and said, "What's the matter? Did I just blow up your mind or something?"

"No," he said slowly, finding it difficult to form words. For some reason or another. That he couldn't quite identify. "I'm just really surprised to see—"

A sharp pain in his left elbow interrupted him, making him cry out at the shock of agony. The baseball that had struck it careened away into the side of the batting cage, and Gendry glared at the pitching machine for a full moment while Arya's biting laugh sounded from the side.

He frowned at her as she covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes glinting in a way that hitched his breath as easily as the Great Keep had, which only made him frown farther. She lowered her hand with a smile still intact, and placed her hands on her hips as he continued to stare at her. "Well, you have to move, stupid, or you're going to get hit again."

Gendry blinked, and realized she was right, and realized that his thoughts were not functioning properly, and realized that something was seriously wrong with him. Quickly, he took a giant step forward, out of the line of fire, and the next pitch only just missed his body as it arced past him.

She laughed again, and he decided it wasn't an entirely unkind sound. His elbow was red where the ball had struck him, but it had gotten mostly muscle and the pain was already receding. He glanced up to find Arya watching him, and frowned again. _Salvage the situation_, he ordered himself, before remembering what had happened. _Perhaps it is beyond that point_.

Her lips twitched and she spoke before he had a chance to redeem himself. "You all right?"

"It was nothing," he snapped, grinning himself when her eyebrows creased in irritation. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you _doing here?"

He considered whether that was an acceptable response, and then gritted his teeth at her valid deflection. He gestured with one arm around the stadium, lazily. "I just got called up a few days ago. From Hornwood. I know the team's not supposed to be back until late tonight, but I wanted to see what it was like." He glared. "What about you?"

"My dad owns the team," she replied simply, crossing her arms. Nimbly, she sat on the railing and swung her skinny legs over so that she could stand on the field and stalk towards him. "I come down here all the time. Sometimes it's just nice to sit in the upper deck and think."

Gendry watched her frown, as though she had said something without realizing it. "I can understand that. You startled me. I didn't expect to see you." _Maybe ever again_. Improbable, since she was the daughter of Ned Stark, his franchise's owner, but he could always hope. Or dread.

He shook his head at himself, cursing whatever was screwing with his head. Across from him, she watched, and smiled as if she knew what was going on inside of his mind. He desperately prayed that she didn't.

"So you can hit, too?" she repeated from earlier.

"Not very well," he replied, dropping the bat and then awkwardly picking it up so he could put it back in its slot on the batting cage. Walking back to the mound to turn off the pitching machine, he added, "Good enough for the streets, I guess, but nothing compared to what professional hitters can do. Not like I need to, since I'm a reliever."

"For now," she said, as the machine whirled to a standstill and he started to drag it back to where he'd taken it from. Arya stopped just outside the foul line, watching him silently. "But who knows how far your arm can take you? I saw your numbers from Hornwood."

"I had a good stretch," he said uncomfortably. He had; the catchers in Hornwood and he had connected immediately, unlike him and Thoros in Blackhaven, and hitters had been clueless. That was Double-A, though, and this was quite clearly Major League Baseball. He was in a whole new world now, and he was quite aware of it. "I like where I'm at. I'm going to try and stay with what I've got."

"Good," Arya said. "Dad's really excited about you."

_Dad. Ned Stark. The bloody girl's father is Ned Stark, and you're starting to accept that as though you meet major league stars every day. _He frowned at himself, quite aware of the thoughtful expression Arya could see him making. _Actually, I do. I am so, so far from home. Yet I don't think I mind. _

"I plan not to disappoint," he replied aloud.

She cocked her head to the side playfully. "You've got a decent swing. Your bat head could stand to be less flat and you should start with a narrower stance and end with a broader one. It would let your hips drive the ball farther. But not a bad swing. A decent dose of power."

_How long was she standing there? _he wondered, glancing uneasily at the bleachers behind her. He had been quite invested in the hitting; she may have been there for several minutes without him noticing. His defensive thoughts put him on the verbal offensive. "Yeah, well, I'll have you know I was the best hitter on the streets of King's Landing, too. It's not walk in the park, no matter how the hell long my stride is."

"I'll have _you _know that I graduated my high school with records in stolen bases, runs scored, and batting average in a career," she replied, lounging all of her weight on one hip and crossing her arms.

Gendry scrutinized her. "If you were so good, why don't you play in college?"

He realized that she had never explicitly told him that she didn't, but something about the way she had come across was telling him that for all the love she seemed to carry for baseball she did not play softball for the University of King's Landing. With this in mind, he watched her tense momentarily, biting her lip, before forcing her face straight again and relaxing enough to drop her arms back to her sides.

"It's not the same as baseball," she answered finally, looking mildly uncomfortable. He was flattered that she had actually answered; she could have easily walked the few paces down the line that separated them and punched him. "Sort of, and it has some things that I love just as much. But overall, I didn't love it enough to keep at it." Her nose crinkled distastefully. "Besides, with some of the bitches you get on D-1 softball teams... I would never make it through a single season without getting kicked off the team for brawling."

Gendry laughed, feeling his face break out into a wide smile, and for a moment they were actually laughing together, instead of at each other. They both noticed at the same time, and stopped. Gendry watched her cheeks turn red and her eyes dart quickly away from his. He would have commented on it, teased her about it, except his own face was blushing, as well, which almost embarrassed him. _Gods, what are you, six? Stop acting like a fool._

He turned away, glancing over the field of play to hide his crimson face before she turned back to him. With any luck, combined with the sweat on his face he could pass off the color as exertion. Gazing around the outfield, bleachers, and scoreboard, he murmured, "Nothing quite like it, eh?"

It was a stupid thing to say, and he cursed it almost as soon as he said it, but, to his surprise, Arya let out a soft chuckle and agreed. "Sansa can keep her magical waterfalls and far-off mountains... I'd take a crummy baseball field over those any day."

"Me, too," he muttered back without looking, his eyes sweeping around. He sighed. "I've been wondering, the past few days... if I'd actually played in high school, been good enough to get a scholarship or an offer for a college... where would I be today? Would I be here? Would I already be a star?"

"Slow down, hotshot," Arya said, and he turned to find her surveying him with a raised eyebrow. "You're not _all that_, you know."

Gendry shrugged. "Yeah, I know. But I'm not bad. Your father obviously thinks I'm good enough to be here. That at least means I'm good enough." He smirked. "Good enough to beat you, anyway."

"Ha!" She scoffed, her arms crossing again and her expression turning murderous. "Don't underestimate me. Smarter, taller, and stronger people than you have before, and they all regret it. Believe me."

"Little old you? I don't mean to offend you, but..." There was no way to say the next bit without sounding full of himself, so Gendry decided to sigh and endure his own arrogant show. "...look, I throw hard, okay? It's not a softball, either."

The murderousness did not abate. Arya shook her head at him and turned her head towards the batting cage, towards the bat hanging there, and narrowed her eyes. "Give me three pitches. I'll bet you lunch I can put one in play."

It was Gendry's turn to scoff. "I'm not going to do that. It wouldn't be fair."

"If you want, we can make it two pitches, and then we'll be more evenly matched," Arya jeered, raising her chin defiantly and angrily.

He could hardly believe this was happening. Ten minutes before, he had been happily hitting baseballs off of the machine in the home stadium of the major league franchise he was going to play for. Now, the infuriating, bickering, annoying little daughter of the owner was worming her way into his moment _again_, and... if he wasn't enjoying it so much he would be incredibly irritated.

"Ha, ha," he said sardonically. "I'm not gonna do it, Arya."

"You're scared."

He grinned. "That won't work on me."

"Coward. Bastard. Lowborn scum."

His teeth clenched of their own accord. All the blood in his body rushed on a whim into his arms and legs, heating the narrowest of blood vessels and lighting a million fires beneath every nerve. He felt the amiable expression simply disappear from his face, replaced by a solemn rendition of apathy. Beneath it, he was finding it very difficult not to throw something. "Do not call me that."

"Then go and throw the ball."

_Little or not, she's got it coming_. He stalked to the side of the batting cage and furiously seized his mitt and three baseballs. He turned back to her and held them up, brandishing them like weapons in her direction. "Three pitches. I like to dine expensively."

She smiled as though she'd just won the World Series and skipped to the cage like a little girl to retrieve the bat. He watched her go, feeling his blood boil, and then stalked out to the mound with purpose. Once there, he kicked dirt off the rubber moodily, watching out of the corner of his eye to see what Arya's batting stance looked like. He had always believed you could tell a lot about a person by their batting stance.

To his great annoyance, the posture she adopted as she dug her way into the right-handed batting box was perfectly parallel to her personality; guarded and daring. She wasn't wearing cleats, but she dug her heels into the box with the impression that she'd done the same thing ten thousand times before. She didn't tap the plate or her shoes. She just lunged with the bat out at him once and then came back with it to let it rest on her shoulder, glaring at him the entire time. The stare almost unnerved him, but no more so than did her sweet smile when she noticed she had tweaked him.

Growling to himself, he took the ball in his hands and prepared to come set for the pitch, forming a game plan in his mind. _Fastball, fastball, slider. Put her away with the good stuff. There's no way she'll ever be able to touch it._

With that thought in mind, he gripped his heat on the leather ball and came set, barely waiting long enough for a pause that wouldn't earn him a balk before striding and firing towards the plate, taking just a little off of his fastball to make sure he wouldn't lose control enough to hit her.

He need not have worried; the pitch soared right past Arya. She never took the bat from her shoulder, or gave any indication she had ever seen the pitch. When he straightened up from his throwing motion, she bounced once on her toes and stayed in the batting stance, indifferent to whatever had happened.

_Giving up?_ Gendry wondered. He smirked at her, thinking he'd finally caught her in something she wasn't prepared for. She merely returned an even more maliciously devious expression, which concerned him for a moment before he realized he was standing there like a fool.

Quickly, he hopped back to the rubber and scooped up one of the other two baseballs, again gripping it for a fastball. _Too much heat for her, I guess. Looked at the first pitch, but there's no way she can get the bat off her shoulder quick enough to even make contact with the ball, much less put it in play..._

He delivered the second pitch, and let it sling with everything he had, trusting in himself to hit his spots. The ball sailed once again through the strike zone, and for the second time Arya let it go, this time turning her head to watch it sail by. Not once did she make to hit it, swing at it, or otherwise bodily react to it in any way, and the apathy irritated him almost as much as her snide tone had. When she looked back at him, he repeated his smirk. As before, she grinned back, as though she knew something he didn't.

"Like hell," he snarled under his breath, turning his back on her and snatching the third ball off of the dirt. "You're down two strikes, little girl. You've only got one left."

He stepped onto rubber, staring down the short batter who was _lounging _in the box as though she had better things to do, and slid his fingers into the slider grip before rolling his eyes. _Oh, hell with it_, he decided. She hadn't given any indication she was even trying to win, and he had no reason to throw something else when his fastball was doing the job. That was a fundamental law of pitching.

Instead of holding the slider, he moved his fingers back to his fastball grip, and came set with the intent to just blow her away. His leg was already finished with his stride and the ball halfway out of his hand when he realized he'd made a grave mistake.

Arya was already turning, her right hand slipping down the bat to pinch the barrel, knees pivoting to directly face him on the mound. She brandished the bat sideways as the pitch whirled in, a straight fastball, and she absorbed the heat ball with the bat expertly; her eyes were so focused that even with the pitch traveling at ninety-nine miles per hour Gendry could see them tracking the pitch for every inch of its trajectory.

The bunted ball slid off of the bat at considerably less velocity than it was originally thrown and rolled down the third base line, rolling into the grass lip of the baseline before spinning back towards the foul line. Gendry watched it grow closer to the chalk line, his only chance for salvation after being outsmarted by the incorrigible girl at the plate.

_Roll, motherfucker. Motherfucking roll foul._

The baseball obliged him for a second, turning over with rapidly declining acceleration in the direction of foul territory. The wind sighed almost apologetically as the ball stopped rolling, sitting perfectly atop the chalk line. Gendry would have sworn, but he didn't think he knew words that were colorful enough to describe his situation.

He chewed on his lip and decided to be a man about the situation, turning back to Arya. The innocent look she shot in his direction—as she set down the _fucking _bat with both hands, no less—simultaneously infuriated him and... almost made him want to guffaw at the sheer ludicrousness of it. As it was, he had to focus intensely, scrunching up his face in the process, to maintain a frustrated expression.

"Going to contest it?" she asked cheerily, nudging with one shoulder towards where the ball sat on the line.

Gendry didn't even look at it. "Why would I? It's fair. Fair is fair. I'm not stupid."

"Sometimes you act like it," she replied bluntly. Somehow, with the smile in place, it didn't quite come off as rude or insulting. The way she cocked her head to the side and the odd tilt her voice adopted almost made it seem as though it was a _good _quality, but he shook his head at himself with those thoughts; it obviously couldn't be that.

He scratched his head, quite aware that he looked like an idiot, after the show he'd put on and the showing up he'd endured. A stuck-up idiot, as well, which was quite worse. "So, um... I guess I owe you lunch, then."

"Yep." She popped her sounds, clasping her hands behind her back, looking quite smug.

He shook his head. "No need to act so high and mighty, m'lady."

His tactic worked terrifically: her brow darkened, the smile was wiped clean, and the clasped hands dropped to fists by her side. "I told you," she growled, "do not call me that."

Gendry grinned, sweeping a hand out in a bow. "Oh, forgive me, m'lady. I did not mean to offend."

By the time he had straightened up, she had covered the distance between them and punched him in the shoulder. He rolled away from the blow and it didn't do any good, and after she noticed his laughing where he should have been groaning in pain she planted two hands firmly into his chest and sent him reeling in his surprise. Still laughing, he fell down onto the infield grass, and she crossed her arms as she stood over him, still frowning.

"Shut up," she growled, and kicked him once for good measure. "You're buying me lunch. Right now."

"As m'lady com—" The punch was aimed for his jaw, and years of tracking baseballs barely let him half-deflect it and half-dodge it. The movement did stop his laughter, which seemed to satisfy her enough for her to back off a step.

"Fine," he droned, climbing to his feet and dusting himself off. "Lunch."

"I brought a car," she told him. "How did you get here?"

"Bus."

"I guess I'm driving, then."

"Yes, m'lady," he said, already dancing out of range. Staying on his toes, a few arm's lengths away, he escaped in the direction of the dugout, calling, "Let me get my stuff, and I'll meet you back out here."

He changed back into street clothes, comfortable mingling clothes, in the locker room, and then hoisted his duffel bag back over his shoulder again, leaving his cap hanging in his locker and casting one last forlorn stare at the jersey bearing his name. He found Arya waiting impatiently, her arms crossed and her feet tapping as she glanced out over the field, and when he emerged they both hopped back over the gate and trotted up the stairs, over the concourse, and out of one of the locked gates of the stadium. She didn't speak a single word at him—indeed, he didn't get a look at her that wasn't of her back—until they had entered the reserved parking lot across the street and she had unlocked her... foreign sports car. That he would have killed to work on back in Tobho Mott's shop. He felt regal and guilty as he climbed into the passenger's seat.

"Where to?" she finally asked him, as they both buckled their seat belts.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't care. You decide, this is your hometown."

"You're paying," she retorted. "It should be your decision."

"I'm a major league pitcher," Gendry said, hoping it came off more as a statement of fact like he desired and not as another cocky phrase he seemed to be on a roll with. "I can probably afford wherever you want to go. You should at least give me your number, though, so we can make it an official date."

"You already have my number, stupid," Arya commented, but left it at that, surprising him by neither calling him a stuck-up son of a bitch nor commenting on the latter insinuation of his last sentence. He watched her for a moment as she began to pull out of the parking lot, wondering where they were going to go, and then glanced out the window while he tried to sort through the emotions the sudden appearance of the Stark girl was causing him.

He didn't look up again until they arrived. For all his knowledge of Arya, he honestly expected a sports bar. He was genuinely surprised when she easily found a streetside parking spot next to a family restaurant. The curious glance he threw her direction went unnoticed, and he was forced to hustle out of the car to catch up with her as she waltzed into the establishment, named "Mordane's Kitchen". Built into the first floor of a building down one of Winterfell's side streets, the bright windows and noisy but controlled environment seemed as though it belonged in a cozy town in the distant country, rather than a sprawling, happy city of the North.

"Hi, Arya," the hostess said as soon as they walked in, smiling at Gendry over her shoulder. "Just the two of you?"

"Unfortunately," Arya said non-seriously. The hostess laughed and then led the two of them to a table deeper in the large dining room, wedged into a corner by the wall. The lunch rush was just beginning, tables filling up fast, but the noise level wasn't so loud as to make the setting uncomfortable. Gendry intentionally tilted his seat so that his back was to wall and he could see the whole room—old street habits dying hard—and Arya sat across from him, fiddling for a moment on her phone before picking up the menu and rifling quickly through it, as though she had already seen it a hundred times.

Gendry awkwardly picked up the other menu, feeling mostly forgotten, and wondered then if this would be a completely discomfited lunch for them. Or, at least, for him, seeing as Arya did a great job of discomfiting him as it was. He realized that he had completely jumped into the idea of attending lunch with her, without much of a thought on the matter, and that confused him. His sudden anxiety over the discomfort of the situation, what was more, seemed to indicate that he was looking forward to it. With that interesting thought in mind, he peered over the top of his menu at her, trying to decipher his feelings while locating the cheapest item on the menu—as before, old habits died hard, even if he could afford practically anything on the menu.

They were completely quiet until the waitress came, delivered waters, and took their orders. Once the menus were gone, there was nothing left for Gendry to hide behind, and he looked up to find Arya studying him. Before he could think up something to say, Arya spoke up herself. "How were the minors?"

He put his eyes on the tablecloth, fingering it tentatively. "It was okay. It started out rough. Some guys gave me a tough time, but that passed. You know the Blackhaven coach, right?" She nodded. "Thoros, too, then? We had some encounters, but he actually helped me find a groove after awhile. Then it was smooth sailing, and I got a hot streak moving along. I guess your father was impressed."

"Him and Luwin, both," Arya told him. She started to say something else, and then hesitated.

"What?" he prompted.

She bit her lip. "Nothing."

"It wasn't nothing."

If she bit any harder, she would bleed out over the table before he had his lunch. She seemed reluctant to voice whatever was on her mind, but finally said, "I... didn't know what was going on for you. I never assumed that you would have come so far so early..." She glanced up, her look a mixture of accusation and trepidation. "Why didn't you ever call me to tell me you were doing so good?"

The question was unexpected, and he had to blink several times before he could even realize the true answer. "Wouldn't that have been... I don't know, a little creepy? If I just randomly called you up to tell you I was playing good baseball?" He recalled the night in his residence in Blackhaven that he'd almost dialed her cell phone in a daze and barely suppressed a shudder.

She blinked back at him and looked away. Gendry thought her cheeks might have been acquiring a bit of color. "Well, when you put it that way... still, a shout-out when you got called up to Double-A would have been nice. I was completely taken off-guard when I heard you were at Hornwood."

"Why?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Why were you taken off-guard?" Gendry repeated. He looked down again. "I don't get it. That was... surprising to you? Shocking?"

"No," she said quickly. "I just expected to be told about it when it happened. From somebody."

"Maybe it wouldn't be this way," he began gingerly, "but... I..." He stopped and looked right at her. "Look, I like you fine and everything, and I'm extremely grateful that you brought me to the attention of your father, but it's not like we've intentionally collected outside of baseball. What we have is more like a business arrangement that was done way back when, instead of an actual friendship."

She held his eye contact for a long moment. "You don't consider me a friend?"

He shifted in his seat. "I don't know if we have a situation where we can even be friends."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly. He sipped on his water, trying to think without making it apparent by his facial expression that he was thinking. "I guess if you're willing, I could consider you a friend. I've never really gotten a chance to pick and choose before. I don't have many friends."

"Neither do I," Arya said openly. "I have, however, had worse friends than you. At least you keep your word when you lose a bet."

Gendry grunted at that and observed the girl across from him quietly. He supposed, actually, that "woman" may soon have been a better description; for all of her sometimes immature attitude, he realized that she was coming of age and her body had largely finished its final developments. It hadn't done a horrible job; her arms were skimpy, but her legs—even though he wasn't about to truly creep her out by looking under the table to see them—were toned and slim with athleticism, and he felt like both of his arms together could have equaled the volume of her waist. They were not prominent, but her breasts poked out from her chest with a defiance equivalent to hers, as if to make sure her body and everyone else around her was assured that they were there despite all odds. When he looked into her grey eyes he found her staring right back at him with an intensity perhaps even greater than his own, giving him a moment to absorb her face, her smooth complexion and calm stare before they both jolted and blushed as they looked away.

"So... uh," he stumbled. "How did your school finish up? I assume term's over?"

"Ended a few days ago," she answered, clearly relieved to be speaking again. "I couldn't get back to Winterfell fast enough. I've been waiting for summer since Christmas break."

Gendry nodded. "What's it like?"

She furrowed her brow confusedly. "College?" He nodded, and she shrugged. "It's just another experience. I don't enjoy it... pretty much at all, but I think a large part of that is just because it's King's Landing, and I've found that I hate King's Landing."

He chuckled at that. "If you hate it, why do you attend college there?"

"Bloody Sansa," she swore, shaking her head. Her brown hair fell over her face, and he was seized by an urge to reach across the table and brush it out of her eyes. His hand was already a foot off of his lap when he snatched it back, alarmed at himself and very thankful she hadn't noticed. _The fuck?_ "I let her convince me that leaving the North for a while would be good for me. Worst fucking mistake I've ever made. If I don't transfer first, I'm running back north as quick as I can after graduation and I will _never _go back."

Gendry had never been as far north as Winterfell before in his life. Listening to her speak of his homeland, the South, he prickled a bit, and wondered if she really hated his home as much as she said she did. He cleared his throat. "I guess it just takes some getting used to. King's Landing, I mean."

"Maybe," Arya said, "but I can't ever see myself enjoying it."

"I never really had the choice." His mind drifted back to the orphanage where he'd been raised and he involuntarily felt his mood darken. He started to talk, then stopped and worked his jaw for a moment, trying to form sentences from the emotions that were regressing in his head. "It wasn't a great place, yeah. Huge city. Way too many people. A lot of the time homeless people showed up to the orphanage and begged for food and they would be turned away. We barely had enough food for ourselves. Our futures weren't great in that city. Some of the others did well enough in school that they made it into colleges when we grew old enough to move out. Most of us..." He hesitated and sighed. "...didn't. King's Landing didn't offer much of an escape from that life, but we couldn't go anywhere else. And in the inner city, in the streets, you stuck to what you knew to survive."

There was a moment of silence, then, in which he realized he'd gripped the tablecloth in tight fists. Arya wrapped her arms around herself as he unclenched his fists, clearly having noticed the motion. "It sounds like you hate it, too."

He sighed again. "Sort of. But I love it, too. It's the only thing I've ever known. I'd be lost anywhere else."

"You're not lost here," she pointed out.

"I guess not," he acknowledged, "but I have purpose now. A chance I never thought I'd ever have. It's powering me through."

Her eyes were darker but not unfriendly as she looked at him, leaning against the table carefully and resting her chin on her upturned palm. "Would you mind... telling me about the orphanage? About where you grew up? I've never known anything but Winterfell that way," she added quickly. "I want to know what it's like."

"It wasn't great," Gendry replied, his mind again returning to days of hunger and want. "It's not an epic story. It's got a lot of rough patches and not many bright spots."

"I'd like to hear it," Arya said genuinely, and the amount of expression she quietly seeded in her voice surprised him. From someone usually ferocious, he hadn't expected the large portion of gentleness her face and voice showed him. "I'd like to know your story."

While not entirely certain how to take that, Gendry nevertheless settled back into his chair and tried to figure out where to start. Glancing across the table at her, it was in that moment that he realized he actually _didn't_ think of Arya as someone he'd just met, someone he barely knew, someone who was just a passing acquaintance. She was his friend, for better or worse. He was not alone, as he usually felt. They had a connection that the rest of the world had never found in him. He found that he trusted her and that he hoped very much that she trusted him. That's when friends were for, and he had so few of them that he wanted to do right by those that he did.

So Gendry sat back and began to tell Arya the tale of his life, beginning from his earliest memories of the orphanage all the way through scrounging a diploma out of high school and finding decent if unsatisfactory work in car shops around King's Landing. Pausing every now and again to make sure he hadn't bored her or lost her attention—which he never did, amazingly—he even divulged the story of how he found his first baseball glove and fell in love with the sport. Their food came and he still didn't stop talking, nor did she lose interest. He was halfway through his meal, hers nearly already gone, when he finally ran out of things to say.

Abruptly, he felt self-conscious, aware of how much of his soul he had just shown her, but her words dispelled his worry. "You've got a good story, you know. It's really inspiring."

He snorted. "You're the only one who's ever heard it. I don't feel like anyone else would have the patience or the interest to sit there for as long as you just did."

"Hey, stupid," she said, grinning. It was contagious; he grinned back. "We're friends, remember? What are friends for?"

"Wouldn't know," he deflected, gulping down water to change the subject. "So. I told you my story. Why don't you tell me yours?"

It was a mistake to ask, and he didn't know why. What he did see, however, was the way she tensed up instantly and looked away out over the heads of the other diners in the restaurant, biting her lip and keeping her eyes away from him. He cursed himself inwardly and, to a smaller degree, her, as well. Himself because he asked a stupid question; her because such a question shouldn't be enough to just make her suddenly reject him, her new friend.

Before he could say anything to remedy the situation, however, she said, "I've told you already pretty much everything anyone wants to know. Jon, Robb, Bran, and Rickon are my brothers. Sansa is my beautiful sister, who is perfect. I'm the odd daughter that actually has the classic, cold Stark look instead of my mother's family's appearance."

"What's wrong with that?" he wondered aloud, starting when he realized he'd spoken aloud.

She glanced back at him and they both looked away at the same time. He felt distinctly childish. "I don't know. I don't mind it, myself—I prefer it, actually—but other people are turned off from it. It's a dark look, from the North. Everyone else wants the South. That's another reason why I prefer it up here."

"I'm from the South," Gendry said, shrugging. "I like the way you look. Just because you've got darker hair and eyes doesn't mean you're colder. I think it brings out the best in you." He blinked, reflecting on what he'd just told her.

_Gods, stop talking._

Now she was watching him, and he felt like he was under a microscope again. He hated how she could make him feel that way, and liked it at the same time; right now, though, with a small smile clearly pulling at the corners of her lips, he felt like she was either making fun of him in her mind or teasing him beneath the very weight of her stare. Either way, he found himself wishing more than anything he could take back his words.

She released a breath that carried the scent of laughter, and shook her head wistfully. "That's the closest anyone's ever come to complimenting my appearance."

He opened his mouth to tell her that she should never doubt her attractiveness, and only barely snapped his mouth shut in time to prevent the words from escaping. Instead, he bit his tongue for good measure and murmured, "Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. And just because you swung through strike one from some person and then through strike two from another doesn't mean you're out yet. Even strike three doesn't keep you away from another at-bat."

The smile that threatened to unleash itself finally did so, capturing her face. For a moment, Gendry watched the radiance of the southern sun he loved illuminate her harsh but beautiful northern expression. "That reminds me of something my high school hitting coach told me. Whenever I was down two strikes at the plate, he would say, 'What do we say to the god of strikeouts?' And every time he would expect me to reply, 'Not today.'"

"Good advice," Gendry commented, half-distracted by the look of happiness that had enraptured her face, completely unable to look away. Only after she dropped her own eyes and turned her head was he able to shake himself and wonder what the hell was going on.

_What is she doing to me? Why is this happening?_

The rest of the meal's conversation revolved around baseball, and he managed to avoid any further sidetracks due to her appearance, voice, or attitude. He found himself enjoying her company more than he had enjoyed anything except playing baseball in a very long time. _Maybe ever_, he realized with a little jolt. The bill came, and he fished cash bills from his pocket that he kept on hand due to old habits to pay for it as he had promised.

With nothing else to do and a day to spare, he asked Arya to drive him back to his hotel so that he could get situated before preparing himself for whatever was to come the next day, when the team returned and he became acquainted with the Direwolves for the first time. Once again, their car ride was silent, but Gendry was sure he was not the only one to feel quite relaxed where before it had been tense and awkward. Just the loose, one-handed grip Arya maintained on the steering wheel as she navigated the streets of Winterfell betrayed how at-ease they suddenly felt in one another's presence, all debts between them settled and more than a little new understanding in place.

Arya pulled up to the curb across the street from the hotel, and Gendry took a moment to acknowledge that it was like a diamond amongst rocks compared to the lower-grade places he'd been staying at Double-A and Single-A. He voiced as much to Arya, but the young Stark woman merely shrugged.

"It's nice," she said. "I've stayed in some in Oldtown and Casterly Rock that are twice as magnificent, though. You will, too, eventually."

He released a pent-up breath and stared straight out of the windshield. "If I last that long."

There was a moment of silence, not awkward but pensive, and then the sound of her seatbelt unbuckling came to him. Something soft and wet touched his cheek, but by the time he turned in surprise she was already pulling back, a smile on her lips. The skin where she had kissed him tingled, and he was struck by how very... _un-Arya-like _that action had been. It took a very strong amount of self-discipline not to reach up and stroke the patch that her mouth had briefly—blissfully—pressed against.

"What was that for?" he blurted.

"Good luck," she answered, her grin not disappearing. "And also for lunch."

He narrowed his eyes. As if it were obvious, he breathed, "I lost a bet..."

"Yeah," she acknowledged with a nod, and her eyes adopted a glint he couldn't identify. "But you kept your word, too. Not all men do. Especially not when they get beat by a girl." He could certainly identify _that _glint; smugness, staring him in the face in a teasing context, which made him actually smile back.

"Well... I'm a man of my word," he told her. He glanced back up at the hotel, suddenly finding himself very reluctant to step out of the vehicle. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to come up with something, anything to say that would earn him another kiss. His heart was beating quicker than normal.

He realized he needed to get out of the car. Right then.

"So, um... I'll see you around, I assume," he said awkwardly, stupidly. "I imagine you spend a lot of time around the ballpark."

"Yeah," she replied as he opened the door. If he hadn't have known better, he would have thought that there was a twitch of disappointment on her voice. "I'll be there... friend. You have my number if you want to talk."

_What does that mean?_ He shook his head at himself angrily. _It means nothing._

"Okay," he said, instead, nodding. "I'll see you around, then, Arya."

"Yeah," she said, looking away as he climbed out of the car and retrieved his duffel bag from the backseat. "Bye, Gendry."

He climbed onto the curb and watched her pull her car out and away before releasing a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He shook his head at himself and not for the first time wondered what Arya Stark had done to him in the minuscule amounts of time they had spent together that kept her on his mind for hours or _days_ at a time. Seemingly unintentionally on her part, as well. It was not necessarily a bad thing... it didn't make him feel negative in any way, but it _was _confusing the hell out of him.

Crossing the street of a busy metropolitan city, he noted, was not a very good place to have heart-stopping revelations, but, nevertheless, it was there that Gendry finally realized he had feelings for her. He imagined, had she still been there, the amount of thought he poured together at that very moment would have made his face contort until she cried of laughter.

If it let him hear _that _musical sound, however, he just may not have minded.


	10. Chapter 9

**9**

For literally the third or fourth time, Arya stared into the mirror and wondered why she was obsessively changing her outfit, completely unsatisfied with her appearance. It was a fucking baseball game, not a fashion show. She hated trying to wear socially optimal clothing—she had always been horrible at it, made fun of for it, finally learning not to care what anyone else thought about what she was wearing as long as she was comfortable in it.

"So why am I so bent out of shape over this, now?" she asked her reflection, glaring down at the blue blouse and leggings she had settled on this time around. First it had been a Direwolves shirt and shorts, then, after deciding that wasn't feminine enough, she'd tried jeans and a tank top, which just didn't work, and had scrapped the idea of a jacket and skirt before she'd even stepped in front of the mirror. There were a number of reasons she was concerned, the least of which being that she had never once before cared how feminine she looked or if it mattered what she wore to a _fucking _baseball game.

_Shit_.

"Arya!" Bran's voice called from the foyer of Stark Manor, drawling out in a long, annoyed tone. "Come on! Batting practice is already over, at this rate we won't even be there in time for first pitch!"

She groaned, aloud, remembering perhaps the thousand times she had used identical words on her older sister in the same situation. _I really am turning into Sansa. I don't even know what I'm doing, or why I'm messing around with this._

Squeezed by time, she decided that the outfit wasn't too whorish, grabbing her small purse by its straps and swinging it over her shoulder as she rushed out of her room. Bran was right, they were very late; arriving less than a half hour before game time was nearly blasphemous in the Stark household. She thought Robb might never forgive her if they were late. Adding to her annoyance was the prolonged fact that she was still clueless as to why she was suddenly hypercritical of the way she looked. It just made no sense.

As she skipped down the stairs to the foyer, where Bran was waiting in his wheelchair in a shirt bearing a snarling, ferocious wolf, her little brother looked up at her. One eyebrow went up in surprise, and he guffawed. "You _do _know where going to a baseball game, right? Not a double date in a bar?"

"Shut up," she snapped, marching right past him. She seized her Winterfell cap from its peg on the wall as she walked past into the garage and slipped it on over the hair she had grudgingly elected to wear down, reveling in ruining her "perfectly fashionable" outfit with the baseball hat.

Her father glanced at her with even more surprise than Bran had displayed, but didn't comment on it as she stalked around the car and jumped into the passenger seat. Ned Stark waited for his son to roll himself down the ramp to the garage floor and hoist himself into the backseat before bundling Bran's wheelchair into the trunk and hopping into the driver's seat.

The drive was surprisingly stiff for a few minutes. Usually, they all spent the ride to the Great Keep speculating about the starting pitchers and the lineups, but today it was completely silent. Arya was about to sigh and address whatever had her father so uptight when he glanced at her uneasily and murmured, "Do you have a date or something after the game, Arya?"

She scoffed and smacked her car door. "What's up with you two? Why do you just assume something's going on?"

Bran burst out with a short laugh and quickly stymied it with a fist, while Ned simply nodded towards her as if that was explanation enough. "Just by what you're wearing. The last time you wore something like that to the stadium, you were too young to walk and your mother had stuffed you bawling into it." Her father chuckled, but his words only served to irritate her further.

"Why can't I dress nice if I want to?"

"Um," Bran began, placing a hand to his face and feigning intense thought, "because your name is Arya, not Sansa, and you normally wouldn't be caught dead dressed like that?"

"Well, maybe I've changed my mind!" she cried, slumping in her seat and feeling incredibly foolish. Refusing to be so easily admonished, she added, "And if I want to look nice then that's my fucking prerogative."

Her father peered at her shrewdly in wake of her language, but Bran simply scoffed. "Wasn't saying it wasn't. You've just never been this way, and even I didn't expect college to do this to you. You weren't like this at Christmas break, something serious must have happened or you must've met someone if—"

"Bran," Ned Stark cautioned, the crisp and dangerous coating on his voice bringing Arya's brother to a standstill midsentence. "That's enough. Drop it. I think your sister looks nice."

She grinned briefly in thanks towards her father before turning her attention back out the window, hoping an awkward silence would drown Bran's and her father's own interests and prevent further discussion on the matter at a later time.

Alas, it was not destined to be. After only a few seconds of mindless spacing out, her father cleared his throat. "I want to talk to you about Sansa, actually, Arya. I think you and I would both prefer to do it now, before we get to the stadium."

Arya sighed. Not even when her sister was still thousands of miles away could the annoying red-headed beauty stay out of her life. "Fine. What is it?"

"Well, she called me today." Her father glanced at her. "She didn't exactly sound happy in her life, and after comparing notes with your mother we both agree that she hasn't sounded happy for some time."

"Isn't that just the way she is? Always wanting one thing and then when she gets it all she wants is another thing? Never content?"

"Maybe," her father allowed. "Her and Joffrey have always fought."

Arya tensed and quickly tried to cover it. She remembered Sansa's startled telling of her secret and subsequent request that Arya keep it one. While she had been itching to tell her parents ever since she had arrived back in Winterfell, Arya had tenuously kept her word, despite her own desire to do to Joffrey something roughly in conjunction with whatever her father would doubtlessly do should he ever find out. Now, had her father guessed Sansa's secret? Impossible. He was just fishing for it, unaware it was even there. It was no wonder that he was, considering that even _Arya _had picked up rather quickly on Sansa's discomfort that night in the Dragonpit luxury box.

"Yes," she agreed finally, keeping her thoughts to herself. "You know how I've always felt about that prick, though. If you and Mom would let me murder him, I wouldn't hesitate at the opportunity."

Arya didn't miss the subtle exchange of eye contact between her father and Bran in the rearview mirror and looked at them both for some long moments before Ned Stark cleared his throat pointedly. "We—meaning Bran and I, specifically—have talked about this a number of times. I told him what you said that day I flew down for lunch, and he's told me what he's observed between the two and what Sansa has told _him _over the few years of their... commiseration."

"Okay," Arya said, glaring at Bran, who was blinking back at her with a smooth, impeccable face. "What have you talked about?"

"We've talked about how healthy Sansa is in the relationship," Bran answered slowly, and Arya felt a surge of relief and triumph as she felt her family finally give in to the signs she had seen from day one of Joffrey's emergence into her sister's life. "...and we think you need to make an intervention."

"What?" Arya blurted, before she could help herself. Her teeth ground a second later; getting her family onboard with the hate-Joffrey train was one thing... being forced to approach her sister and begin the battle completely alone was a different one.

"You're her sister," Ned told her. "You stand a better chance of her listening than if your mother tried, and certainly more so than if I tried. The gods know, old and new, that if I said something she would magically heal whatever problems she has, to no betterment of herself. Speaking of your mother, though, keep this to us, because Bran and I didn't tell her."

Ignoring that, Arya groaned and muttered, "Dad... I'm not good at that, you know me... I wasn't your girly talk-about-boys thing daughter, I was your I-wanna-go-out-and-throw-a-baseball-with-you daughter."

"You're the one in leggings and a blouse," Bran mumbled under his breath. When she swung around to glare at him his eyes were cleverly and indifferently out the window.

"Arya," her father began anew. His knuckles were abruptly white on the steering wheel. He sighed, and grimaced. "Look, Arya. I'm really worried about Sansa. All of the evidence right now points to her being in a really compromised situation. Joffrey is Robert's son, and I loved like my own brother—" He hesitated, his eyes growing distant on the road for a moment before he flashed back. "—and I tried to enter with an open mind but I'm starting to grow really uncomfortable. When I've been down south for legal matters about the Monarchs, the Lannisters have been at my throat, and Cersei foremost among them. Any child born by that woman already has a lot to live up to in my book, but Joffrey is more Lannister than he was ever a Baratheon and now, with Robert gone, Cersei is sinking her claws into everything down there. I don't want Sansa roped up into that life. This is me, your father, _asking _you to please put a stop to the mistake your sister could be making. Don't let her live the rest of her life with someone who will not love her or treat her correctly."

"I want him gone, too," Arya said. She remembered her pleading with Sansa, begging her to leave the asshole that had backhanded her in a drunken stupor. "But she says she loves him, Dad, and she won't listen to any reason. What can I say? I've been trying for years, and she hasn't listened to me."

"I'm not sure, little wolf," he replied quietly, "but can you please just try? The more I talk to her the more I get the feeling that she's less and less settling and more and more like she's caught in a dangerous spot between a rock and a hard place. Winter is always coming, and I don't want her in a bad place when it does."

Arya sunk deeper into her seat and turned away from her father. They both knew he already had her convinced; she had never been able to refuse her father when he asked her reasonably, honestly, in the noble way of the Starks. Still grumbling in protest, she complained, "Fine. I'll try. But if she's as thick as she usually is when it comes to him, he would have to throw her off the top of the Dragonpit before you could pry her away from him."

Her father did not look comforted by the thought, his brow darkening considerably, on the contrary. Nevertheless, he simply nodded and offered a quiet word of thanks before deftly changing the subject. Bran watched her in the mirrors, her avoiding his gaze, as they began to have their usual ballpark ride discussion about statistics and players and playoff prospects, that occupied them as they made it into downtown Winterfell and pulled into the private parking lot across the street from the Great Keep that was already teeming with pedestrians. Winterfell was a baseball city, and though far to the North it never failed the pack the stadium.

All misgivings regarding the Sansa situation had vanished by the time they walked through the private gate of the stadium that held the escalator leading directly to the luxury level. Bypassing the escalator, they went instead to the elevator, which Bran wheeled himself into before his sister and father joined him. Arya watched her brother look sullenly at the escalator and then down at his feet before the elevator doors closed, and felt a pang of sympathy for her brother. She knew he hated being an "inconvenience" for his family, even though he was the only member of the family who would actually consider his condition anything more than an unfortunate situation they were forced to accept. Nothing any of them could say changed his mind, though, but that was the way Bran was; convicted and earless when his decisions and opinions were set. Sometimes it annoyed her enough that she wanted to slap some sense into them, just like she wanted to smack Jon when _he _insisted the entire incident was his fault... but she settled for stewing in silence with Bran, fearful of aggravating him further by addressing his discomfort.

Whatever regret Bran had over his condition disappeared instantly when he was rolled into their private suite, rolling up to the railing balcony that overlooked the stadium. His hands resting in his lap and a small grin on his face, he watched the players go through their final stretches before the game while Arya slumped into the chair beside him. Ned Stark was on the phone inside, no-doubt making a call to Luwin before the game's beginning, and she took the moment of silence to smile gratefully at the enthusiasm her brother managed to retain.

"Dad won't spill any beans about it," Bran spoke up suddenly, still observing the field but addressing her, "but I'm almost positive he's looking for another pitcher on the trade market. Or a center fielder. The team needs both of those bad and he's got to be on the phone with the other general managers looking for one almost every night up in his study."

Arya nodded, understanding his reasons for saying so. Center field had been vacant all year, being filled in by utility players, and the starting rotation and bullpen had both done an excellent job of impersonating ambulance occupants throughout the first month and a half of the season. In her chest, her heart skipped a beat and then thumped twice in quick succession, as she reminded herself that the Direwolves _had _just acquired a new pitcher—one with dynamite stuff. Inexplicably, she found her hands smoothing her blouse as she made some whimsical, intelligent response to Bran's statement without ever letting slip any hint of her and her father's secret weapon in Gendry.

They bantered about the roster in a nostalgic reminder of happier days, until her father plopped down beside her in the chair and handed her a soda. "Feel good to be back?"

"Yes," Arya said, conscious to keep her poker face in-play. He was unaware that she had been down to the stadium the previous day, sneaking away and in with the key she had swiped and replaced in his study desk. By some strange stroke of coincidence, she had followed the unexpected sounds of batting practice to find... her prospect knocking balls off of the pitching machine. The surge of joy and relief at watching his arms and bat follow the baseball through the zone and off into the field had stirred an emotion she was used to feeling in the Great Keep; longing. Longing for the game. Longing for baseball. She had actually been startled by just how much longing she had been seized with as she watched him swing through a half dozen pitches.

She shook her head at herself frantically, avoiding the tedious process of trying to figure out where all of these strange thoughts were coming from. Instead, after gulping down several large doses of the delightfully sharp drink, she pounced on her father with the baseball intensity she had inherited in her family genes. "Your starting rotation has been roughed up consistently. The bullpen can't handle the whole season, you know. And you don't have a closer. At all."

Ned Stark groaned, but his grin was amused. "The national anthem hasn't even been sung yet... can't you give me a little time to relax before you start lecturing me on what I can and can't do as a general manager?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to dump one, and pick up a new one before the all-star break," Arya continued, ignoring his protest and pointing down towards the pitching mound. "You're already hard-pressed to make the playoffs, being fourth in a division five teams, and it's only May."

"It's a rebuilding year," her father bluffed. He had been saying the same since Robb entered the league. "Besides, I've no great weapons whom I'm not already willing to part with. Robb I'm obviously never going to deal, Jory is the most consistent I've got on the mound, and Mikken's the only arm I've got in the outfield. The best I could offer is maybe Theon, but with the way he's swinging his bat there's no way I could squeak a ton of value out of that deal."

Arya glared down towards the dugout, indeed finding Greyjoy standing on the top step, glaring over the field and speaking loudly to an equipment-clad figure that could only be her brother. She had never liked the Pyke-born second baseman, who hit a hundred batting average points below his ego, always hit on Sansa, always bullied her, and always was a grade-A asshole. If anything, she wished he would play better if only so that her father could finally trade him and be rid of the arrogant pig.

Her father spoke the truth; the Direwolves were a team still struggling to emerge from collapse. Year after year they put together teams just good enough to escape being absolutely horrible and just poor enough to be scraped off of the playoff hunt come September and October. Ned Stark and Arya had conversed about the subject various times, and her father's point was always that the rebuilding of the Direwolves would begin with the minor leagues and the franchise's prospects there.

Considering that fact now, Arya's eyes skimmed over the field just in time to see four or five of the relief pitchers emerge from the dugout and begin their trek across the outfield grass to the bullpen, where they would remain, unless called upon, for the duration of the game. With a surge of something akin to relief and excitement, she recognized the tall, lean, broad man in the back of the bunch, dragging the roller suitcase full of the pitchers' snacks and wearing a little girls' backpack adorned with a number of childish stickers. She smirked; it was common baseball tradition that the greenest reliever had to cart the embarrassing luggage holding the bullpen's concessions before every game, and it had fallen on Gendry today. Judging from the set stance of his shoulders, Arya could tell even from four hundred feet away that he was annoyed by it. It only made her smirk more.

Gendry and the relievers disappeared behind the outfield fence, but her eyes still watched there; she couldn't have explained why. The national anthem came and went, the Direwolves rushed out onto the field for their short pregame warm-up, but throughout it all Arya's gaze remained glued to the bullpen.

Leaning towards her father, her voice sounded rather more feeble than she had aimed for. "Will he pitch?"

Her father paused, scratching at his beard and temple thoughtfully. "Maybe not today. It's his first time ever in a uniform." He glanced at her, and his face was _almost _teasing. She realized that he hadn't come close to asking who she meant. "Patience, little wolf. When it's his time, he'll get his chance."

Grumbling silently to herself, she stuck her arms in her armpits and sat back in her chair, all too eager to watch the ballplayer she had found jog out of the bullpen and to the mound. Her enthusiasm was almost to the point where she hoped that Jory, a man and pitcher who'd been with the Direwolves nearly ten years and one of her friends, would completely melt down, just for the purpose of Gendry getting an early entry into the game.

Jory did not completely melt down. His first three innings went smoothly before he gave up consecutive two-out doubles in the fourth, giving the Lizards of Greywater a one-run lead. The Direwolves had no answer on offense. Hallis Mollen led the game off with a base hit, but Theon hit the very next pitch weakly back to the mound for a double-play. Robb was having a poor day, as well; in the first his towering drive to center was caught on the warning track, but he struck out in the fourth and failed to block a wild pitch that nearly brought in a second run in the fifth. As it was, the Direwolves were extremely lucky advancing into the sixth inning to be only down one to nothing.

"Jory's high in the pitch count," Bran observed to his sister and father as the Lizards jogged in at the end of the fifth. He eyed Ned Stark. "How long's Luwin going to leave him in?"

Ned shrugged, shaking his head. "Jory's got a resilient arm. He can throw more than a hundred pitches easily. They're having trouble picking up his breaking ball today, too. Those two doubles have been his only real mistakes."

"For now," Arya said dryly.

She had warned correctly: after a walk to the leadoff batter and a long flyout to the second hitter, the next Lizard to step to the plate launched a four-hundred foot home run to left field. While the entire stadium erupted in groans, Arya watched Jory and Robb, and from their body language she could tell that Jory had missed his spot poorly. It had been a breaking ball, as well, and it was now breaking through the outfield bleachers quite violently. Though the inning ended with no further damage, Winterfell still hustled in with a three-run deficit entering the bottom of the sixth.

Again, the bats faltered. After a walk, Hallis and Theon struck in order and left Robb on deck with the runner on base. As the Direwolves took the field again, Arya glanced lazily over at the dugout, blowing air out of her mouth at the futility of the Direwolves battle... and abruptly sat up straight when she realized that Jory was not jogging out of the dugout with his team. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed the pinch hitter in the last inning—Jory's night was over—and also hadn't watched the bullpen in order to identify who was warming up to come into the game to pitch.

Frantically, her eyes swept to the door in the outfield wall that the replacement reliever would jog through, feeling her heart quicken in trepidation as long seconds passed. Her impatience caught up with her again; she forgot about her family sitting next to her, poised on the edge of her seat, gripping the arms of her chair furiously as her mind screamed for the outfield doors to opened.

They finally did. The man who came jogging out was too short, too thin. It was Quent. Not Gendry.

Arya sat back into her chair with a heavily disappointed sigh, feeling her mood turn downwards once again. _Is this how it's going to be every time there's a pitching change until he gets in? Am I going to be this eager all of the time? Gods, what will I do if he pitches horribly?_

At that moment, she realized that both her brother and father were peering at her strangely. When she turned her eye upon them, Ned Stark looked up and away quickly, a grin dancing on his face. Why was he smiling so damn much lately? Bran, contrary to their father, raised a startled eyebrow at her and cocked his head in a question. Arya felt the faintest hint of a blush entering her complexion and quickly turned her head far enough away so that her hair hid her face. She silently tried to calm herself, tried to instill patience; if she reacted that way every single time Gendry didn't enter the game, her family would begin to... get ideas. Ideas that... were obviously... stupid. She frowned.

Bran, thankfully, lost interest as Quent gave up another home run to the first hitter before sloppily walking the next hitter. A fortunate atom ball hit right at the Direwolves' center fielder prevented a run scoring, and then a lucky snag at shortstop for Hallis allowed Theon to turn a double play to get the Direwolves out of the inning. Quent kicked the dirt of the mound as he walked into the dugout, clearly unhappy with himself for surrendering the home run.

Robb, his day continuing to decline, swung through the first three pitches of his at-bat and walked back to the dugout with his head held low. Finally generating some spunk, though, the next two batters both singled before a walk. The Lizards switched pitchers, and just by chance, while the game was halted and the reliever jogged in, Arya's eyes turned towards the Direwolves' bullpen and her heart skipped a beat.

Gendry was up, already stretched and throwing off of the mound. She knew it was him; she couldn't mistake his build if she'd tried, and the number "5" was clearly visible on his back every time he delivered a pitch to Hodor, the bullpen catcher. A soft gasp—or maybe a sigh, she wasn't quite sure—escaped her as she watched him throw a pair of warm-up pitches. He was the only reliever up. He was the only pitcher ready to come into the game. He was coming into the game. It was actually happening, and she wasn't entirely certain she wasn't more excited for it than he must have been at that moment.

The rest of the inning was spent largely by her staring at him in the bullpen, hungrily drinking in the arc of his arm, the speed of his pitches even at reduced velocity, yearning for the inning to end just so he could _fucking get in the game _already. As if to finally spite her by scoring, however, with the bases loaded, the left fielder Farlen squeaked a bloop hit into left center for a two-run single. The next batter grounded into yet another double play, to heavy groans from her brother and a muffled curse from her father, but the Direwolves had halved the Lizards' lead, giving themselves an opportunity for the comeback. And

Gendry was coming.

Into The Fucking

GAME.

She had to fight to keep a neutral expression as the outfield doors opened in the half-inning, as he took his first steps onto the baseball field and began to jog in towards the mound. His lope seemed graceful, not nervous or anxious or anything but relaxed. She obviously couldn't see his face from far away, but she wouldn't doubt he was as calm as his body suggested. She herself was nearly panicking in anticipation, having to clamp down to her seat to prevent herself from leaping up and pacing the small box. Her brother and father were engaged around her, Bran asking who Gendry was and her father giving a short explanation that thankfully left her out of it, and she was glad they were distracted; the last thing she needed was for them to realize how fast her heart was racing.

Gendry got to the mound, and she could have sworn, across the distance, that he looked right at her and they made eye contact, grey eyes meeting gorgeous blue. She had no way of knowing that—she was way too far away to see his eyes—but she would have bet a World Series championship that he had.

Her brother and father continued to talk over her as he warmed up, which was thankful for—she didn't trust herself enough to speak at that moment. The pitches seemed to fly by, and then Robb was throwing down to the second base, the ball was coming around the horn, and the loudspeaker was announcing, "Now into the game to pitch for the Direwolves, number five, Gendry Waters."

A collective murmur of confusion simmered throughout the stadium, as fans turned to each other and calmly wondered who in the fuck Gendry Waters was. Arya put her hands over her face to hide her grin. _You don't know he is. But you will._

Robb walked out to the mound, and she watched him and Gendry have a short, three-sentence or so exchange that left them both smiling and chuckling. She felt her heart swell, completely overjoyed that her brother and Gendry were so instantaneously companionable that despite only meeting briefly before they seemed linked like a genius combination.

Then the first batter was stepping up to the plate, Robb was back behind the dish, and Arya couldn't breathe anymore. It felt like an eternity as Gendry took the pitch sign and came set. Time stopped, and she could have screamed, pleading with the baseball gods to just have him deliver the _motherfucking _pitch.

He did. It whistled in uncontested, in the vicinity of one hundred miles per hour, for strike one.

She released her breath in a groan, but thankfully it was soft enough to escape notice by Bran and Ned because of the appreciative applause from the stadium's attendance. Her hands fell away from her face as the horrible anxiety from the first pitch passed, falling to clasp themselves in her lap. Her foot was tapping as Robb lobbed the ball back. _Two more. Two more strikes. Three more outs. You can do it_.

The next pitch was another fastball. The batter got a decent chunk of the ball, catching if off the barrel, but was so far behind the fiery pitch that it shot into the seats on the first base line as a line drive, foul. Fans scattered and screamed as it careened towards them, but it luckily bounced off the back of a seat and ricocheted back onto the field, where the first base coach scooped it up and lobbed it back into play.

_Oh-two_, she preached, closing her eyes in her nervous state. _Oh-two on fastballs. They can't touch your fastball. Throw it again. Throw it again, you giant, stupid bull._

Gendry didn't. He threw a slider on oh-two, but it missed harmlessly low, even though the hitter looked thoroughly shocked by the break of the pitch. Robb tossed it back to Gendry with a nod, indicating that Gendry had hit his spot perfectly, and they reset.

Arya wasn't prepared for exactly how much she wanted Gendry to strike the hitter out. So much so, in fact, that when Gendry's third fastball of the at-bat was popped up on the infield, she gave an audible groan. Theon and Hallis both settled under it before Theon finally ducked away, and the shortstop corralled it for the first out of Gendry Waters' career. As it went around the horn, Arya scowled at her disappointment, turning it into relief as one out flipped up onto the board.

_He got an out. He got the first out. He's only got four thousand, eight hundred and seventeen more to go until he can retire._

She glanced side-to-side, making sure she wasn't being glared at strangely by her brother and father. They themselves were too engrossed to notice her, her father's hands kneading his own cheeks in focus. It was relieving to find she was not the only one on edge about Gendry's first appearance, and with that thought in mind she turned her concentration back to the game.

The first two pitches to the next hitter, two fastballs, both missed the strike zone. Just as Arya was being to frustrate, however, Gendry dropped in a slider for a strike. She watched the way he set up on the mound, a solid body yet a relaxed poise, with a concentrated set position and a definite pause. The way he strode, a straight slide-step, and the strength and fluidity with which he delivered the pitch... entranced her. It was like watching a master artist paint nonchalantly, as if he had better things to do, and, to someone who loved baseball as much as she, it was breath-taking.

With that being said... it was the first inning of his first appearance in his first ever big league tenure. And the next fastball caught the heart of the plate.

The batter swung and hit it so hard that the sound jarred Arya's eardrums. It hit Hallis in his tracks, nearly in the position his glove had been in at the beginning of the pitch, and only by the sheer luck of positioning and quick reflexes was it an out. The ball went around the horn again, and Gendry's step was a little less confident. With pride, however, she noted that the rigidity of his body was just as determined as ever, and if she could see his face clearly she knew it would have been crunched in concentration.

The third hitter stepped up to the plate, a pinch hitter for the Lizards' pitcher. He was a larger man, who probably may have legged out a single on a ball hit to the wall, but looked like a natural-born power hitter.

Gendry appeared unconcerned, toeing the rubber expectantly, waiting far more patiently for Robb's sign than Arya was waiting for his pitch in the luxury box above. She didn't have to guess fastball. She knew it was coming.

And it came. The ball flew by, nailing the lower half of the strike zone, and the hitter swung straight through it. First the batter stared at his bat in alarm, then at Robb behind him, clearly perplexed that the ball was not traveling over the Wall far to the north at that very moment. Arya smirked, and Gendry retrieved the ball without any visible indication of arrogance or aggression. He simply returned to the mound for the next pitch.

It was a slider, and it fell into the strike zone without a swing. The hitter stepped out of the box as the crowd cheered, clearly trying to cover his unsettled state, taking a few practice swings. Some fans climbed to their feet with another oh-two count and the hitter and two outs, cheering for the strikeout, cheering for _Gendry_, and abruptly Arya realized she was on her feet, as well, and standing against the railing, both of her hands locked around it with a death grip, her seat abandoned behind her in her anxious need to be closer to the play.

From her vantage and distance, there was no way to see what Robb called for, but Arya was almost certain it was the fastball, and Gendry accepted the pitch without complaint or resistance. He came set, pausing for an oddly long moment in his set position as Arya squeezed the railing so hard the metal felt like it would bend.

Then, his leg strode; his arm came around. The pitch left his hand, and less than a half second later it collided with Robb's glove.

The crowd roared with applause as the batter dropped the bat he hadn't swung next to the plate, as the eight fielders began to jog into the dugout before the umpire even made the easy strike-three call, and as Arya leaped in the air in triumph and squealed in a manner she tried to avoid like death.

Crying, "Yes!" she did something she had never thought she would do in her life. Turning away from the game and hopping in place, she skipped around the box completely oblivious to the looks of her father and brother, completely locked up in the euphoria of Gendry's flawless first inning pitched of major league baseball. He had done it. He had done it in less than two _months_. From nobody he had become something greater, something mightier than himself, and for all the excuses she had been hiding behind of how she had discovered him and so wanted him to succeed, Arya suddenly realized that she hadn't been rooting for him for herself; she had been rooting for _him_, because he was her friend—strange enough as it seemed to say that—and she wanted _Gendry_ to succeed for _Gendry._

She punched the air one last time, exhaling in relief and victory, and then turned back to her family. Ned Stark took one glance in her direction and looked away, with a stony expression that implied he was trying to hide his emotions. Bran was doing no such think, himself, staring at her with open horror. Her brother's jaw hinged open and he blurted, "What have you done with my sister?"

"Shut up, Bran," she said, and the memory of her reaction to the strikeout rushed back to humiliate her in retrospect. She walked quickly back to her seat and took it again, hoping her brother would be _smart_ and leave the conversation where it was.

Nope. "Seriously, what happened to you in King's Landing? I thought you were fine the last couple days, but today you're _whack_ off your rocker... it was just a strikeout..."

"Bran," she began to warn, but he spoke over the top of her.

"He's the new pitcher, right?" he questioned. Without waiting for the answer, he added, "Cool. First inning success. What's that to you to make you go mental like that?"

"Bran," her father began to warn tiredly.

But then Bran's face shifted, and Arya decided it was in a particularly devious and mischievous way. "_Oh_," he drawled out in a tone that suggested he knew something he wasn't to. "_I _see. I get it. All right."

Arya scowled at him. "What do you see?"

Bran, with a little smirk that deserved to be slapped off his face, glanced down at the field and up and Arya, rapidly diverting his gaze afterwards. "Nothing."

"What do you see?" Ned Stark pressed, appearing equally as confused as Arya, if less alarmed.

"Nothing," Bran repeated, crossing his arms over his chest. It was a horrible thing, but if he hadn't have been in a wheelchair Arya would have seized him by the throat and throttled him against the nearest wall. "Still, pretty strange if you're going haywire over... that."

"Shut up, Bran," Arya grumbled, not entirely sure what he was referring to and yet entirely sure what he was referring to. What was he referring to? She knew. No, she didn't. It didn't exist. She didn't know what she was talking about. What was she talking about, that she knew existed when she couldn't even identify what it was? She groaned inwardly, putting a face to her head, and wishing that she had not been dumb enough to wear clothes that she thought made her look more attractive. Which was totally not what she had been trying to do.

Aside from the looks Ned passed between his two children thereafter, fortunately, Bran let the mystery subject drop, and she could try to go back to the cold, calculating person she was normally, picking at and fidgeting in her rather unusual attire as the game progressed. The first hitter of the Direwolves' seventh pinch hit for Gendry, and so he did not return to pitch the eighth, to Arya's combined relief and disappointment. Her father's team came up empty in the seventh and eighth innings and the reliever who came in after Gendry gave up a two-run home run to deep center to counter the two runs the Direwolves scored. Although they managed to scrape together a run in the ninth, they fell short of tying the game, and the Lizards eventually won, six to three.

Usually, any time the Direwolves lost meant Arya sulking in misery for up to three hours after the game's conclusion. As her family collected their things forlornly, however, and filed out of their box to join the crowds headed for the exits, her step was giddy, and she felt as though she were bouncing on her toes. She felt like chastising herself, as too strangely happy actions had quite embarrassed her in front of her father and Bran, but in the end she couldn't help herself.

_Gendry made it_. _He's actually here! He's a major league reliever!_

As they rode the crowded elevator down to the ground level, Ned Stark luckily avoiding detection—an oddity in Winterfell—he leaned down to whisper in her ear. "I'm going to go talk to Luwin. I'll get a cab home." He slipped the car keys into her hand. "You've got Bran?"

"Yeah, I'll take care of him," she answered, and her father nodded absently. She wondered what he was to speak with the manager about; there were any number of horrible instances the Direwolves had had to be addressed, but she wasn't sure how many of them could be traced back to Luwin. For however bad his team was playing through the early part of the year, he was a rather good manager.

Her father slipped away as the elevator doors opened, and Bran rolled himself after Arya as they made their way out of the Great Keep. Arya glanced back up at the stadium, smiling reminiscently at the crowd's cheer as the batter watched strike three pass him by, as Gendry emotionlessly trudged towards the dugout after his first major league appearance. She wished she could have been down there to congratulate him, with a high five and a bone-crunching hug that she reserved for a select few. She supposed it could be justified giving one to a friend...

She blinked. Bran was looking at her oddly, and she glared at him until he looked away.

They were halfway back to Stark Manor before he spoke up again. "So what is it, really?"

"What's what?"

"What's the thing with you and that pitcher? Waters."

She glanced at him sideways, and narrowed her eyes to make herself appear more intimidating. At that moment, all she wanted was for him to drop the conversation immediately. "What are you talking about?"

Bran sighed. "Come on, Arya. I'm not three. Dad's clueless, I guess, but I know there's something going on between you two. If you're worried about Dad finding out, don't worry, your secret's safe with me, just tell me—"

"Bran, I have no idea what you're talking about," she said quickly. Why was her heart beating faster? Why was sweat beading on her forehead? _There's nothing!_ she tried to convince _herself_ frantically. _There's not. There's not. There's not._ Even then, she knew she was lying.

"Arya, come on, I don't bite," Bran pressed, unaware of her internal grapple. "If you and him don't want anyone to know, I won't tell." His lips quirked annoyingly. "But if you _do _want to keep it between yourselves you've got to avoid displays like the one you just put on at the stadium."

"Listen," she growled, trying to sound like their mother. She'd never been good at that; another thing Sansa beat her in. "There is nothing like that. I swear." _I don't swear._ "He's the prospect, right? I helped Dad discover him." I _discovered him. He's mine_. "We're friends, okay? I'm happy he's fulfilling his dreams, that's all."

Her brother did not look convinced. His lips pursed and his jaw moved as though he were going to say something particularly logical, as he often did in situations where people were wrong and trying to convince him they were right. Instead of speaking, however, he just looked at her long and hard before finally shrugging, nodding, giving her another piercing glare, and then turning his attention out of the car window as the freeway rushed by.

The rest of the drive was quiet, their arrival at home equally so. Arya pulled into the garage, retrieved Bran's wheelchair for him, and made sure he did not faceplant on the concrete as he heaved himself back into it. Watching her brother roll himself into the house, she thought back to the car, to her denials of something she wasn't sure she even grasped, to the field and Gendry's success, to the previous day at the stadium, at the restaurant, in the car outside of his hotel...

Without another thought, she walked into the house and stalked quickly through the front rooms into the sitting room, where her mother was seated on the couch doing something that had to do with finances. The TV was on, on some late night news program, but Catelyn didn't seem to be watching it. Arya would have bet her college tuition that her mother had not watched the game.

"Mom," she said, and Catelyn raised her head, smiling at her daughter. "I'm going out."

"Out?" her mother repeated incredulously, glancing at the clock. "It's almost ten o'clock."

"Yeah, so?" Arya shrugged. "I'm nineteen. I won't stay out long. I just wanted to let you know I'm going to take the car. Dad stayed at the stadium after to talk to Luwin, he said he'll take a cab home."

Catelyn looked reluctant to agree, but after a grudging moment her mother's face tightened and she nodded. "Okay. Be careful, though. Stay safe. Don't do anything too abrupt."

Wondering exactly what her mother expected her to be doing, Arya thanked her and hurried back out to the car, pulling perhaps too quickly out of the Starks' driveway and swinging the vehicle back around to head directly back to where she came from. She wasn't entirely sure what her mindset was, but she knew that she wanted to be at the Great Keep before Gendry left the stadium for the night.

She arrived back and parked in the same parking lot, bustling across the still-busy night street and hurrying around to the gate the Direwolves used when they entered and left the stadium. It was only about an hour after the game, and few players had left yet. She sat down on a bench and waited, hoping she hadn't arrived back too late to catch Gendry.

A few minutes passed, and a few Direwolves slinked their way from the stadium, crossing the street sullenly to parking garages where their vehicles were located or else milling nearby, waiting for the bus that would be available to take them back to the small apartment complex that offered cheaper rates to the players. None of those she saw matched Gendry's height or build, and she was extra relieved when Theon Greyjoy stalked out and away without so much as glancing in her direction thirty yards away.

The gate opened shortly later, and pulling the same duffel bag as always over his shoulder, Gendry stepped out. She climbed to her feet instantly, ready to sprint at him and tackle him in a hug, and only just held herself back from doing so when Robb walked out of the gate after him.

She paused on her feet, hesitant to approach but wanting, _needing _to see Gendry at that moment. The last thing she wanted was her _brother _there to spoil their reunion, standing there awkwardly throughout the whole ordeal. That was fitting, though, she supposed. Her father surprised at her earlier outbreaks, one brother making insidious insinuations, another brother openly preventing her from embracing those insinuations.

In her moment of hesitation, thankfully, Gendry's head seemed to turn in her direction. They made eye contact; as before, blue met grey, and Arya felt a shiver slink down her spine. A wide grin broke out over his face, and he opened his mouth to call out to her. She moved to dissuade him from doing so, but he was already pausing, glancing at Robb, who was still speaking without having noticed his sister.

Arya watched as Gendry murmured a few words of some sort or another, to which Robb nodded, and then the two split, Robb crossing the street without a backwards glance to the parking ramp, Gendry waiting until he was sure Robb would not look back to turn in Arya's direction and begin to close the gap between them.

She couldn't help the smile that mirrored his, and nearly laughed at the childishly joyous expression on his face. "I did it, Arya! I made it here! I made it!"

Without warning or explanation, she stepped towards him and leaped into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck so that she was dangling over a foot off of the ground. Belatedly, his came around to support her, so that she wasn't completely holding up her own weight by his neck. It was not a tentative, sort-of-friendly hug; their embrace was distinctly close, him holding her as if he was afraid she would break if he squeezed any harder, her clinging to him as though she was trying to compress him into a baseball. It was strangely intimate, and even when she finally loosened her arms from around him and he set her down, there was no awkward leap back, no awkward tiptoeing of the feet. They just looked into each others' eyes for several moments, their arms resting on their own sides, only a foot or two of space between them.

Arya cleared her throat after a moment, a smile still in place, woefully aware that a quite disconcerting pause—in a startlingly good way—had just ruptured their conversation. "You did." Habit and a strange nervousness forced her to add, "I don't know why you were messing with the slider to the first two hitters, though. Should've just blown them away with the fastball."

Gendry grinned down at her. "You would say that, the first thing out of your mouth."

"Sorry," she said meekly, trying to mean it but managing not to make it sound like it. "I meant, you really did good. I'm really happy you're here, I'm really happy you made it."

"I thought you were there," he nodded. "In that box. I don't know what made me look up, but when I did I thought it was you. Don't ask me why." She wasn't entirely sure why, but even as Gendry's face became suddenly impassive and he shifted his eyes away from her, something inside of her melted, and she wanted nothing more than for his arms to be around her again.

Her fingers twitched, and she found her own eyes dropping to his chest, defined muscle outlined even through a thin jacket and shirt. She went to dig her hands into her pockets before remembering that she didn't have any on her leggings, and suddenly felt rather exposed, glancing down at her outfit. She felt suddenly self-conscious and even more anxious, afraid to look him in the eye, now. What did he think of her, wearing this? Was this his type? Did he hate girls that dressed like this?

When she finally hiked up the nerve to look him in the eye again, his face was still unintelligible, neither admiring nor disapproving, and his feet shuffled as he glanced over towards the parking ramp. "Um... your brother's giving me a ride. And a place, I guess. He said him and Greyjoy have a pull-out couch in their apartment, and they're going to let me stay there for a while, at least until I get settled, I guess."

Arya tried to wrap her head around that for a moment, and frowned. Gendry as her brother's roommate. And Theon. _Ugh_. Off the top of her head, she could think of a dozen reasons why she would've found any other living arrangements for him preferable to the ones he had gotten, and couldn't even fend off the one that was especially annoying: her _brother _was _Gendry_'s roommate. The nagging urge at the back of her mind that ignited every time she looked at Gendry was telling her it was a very awkward situation.

Aloud, she shrugged and said, "Good. Glad you're fitting in so easily."

"Yeah," he said, feet still shuffling. "He's rolling down to pick me up right now, actually."

It took a second, but Arya finally realized that she didn't want to be caught—by her brother—with Gendry, standing alone together in the dark on a Winterfell street late at night. She wondered if that wasn't why Gendry had been shuffling his feet.

"All right, then," she said, entirely reluctant to go. "I'll see you... sometime."

"Yeah," Gendry said, nodding, not moving either. His lips turned upwards; his smile was so reluctant, so gritty and strange on his rough, tough face, that she felt herself smiling just looking at it. "Hopefully, a lot more often now that I'm here."

"Yeah," she echoed. She needed to step away. Robb would be there in seconds. She didn't want to have to explain anything, not that late, not when this stupid, stubborn man in front of her was hypnotizing her, doing horrible, strange, wonderful things to her mind with only limited exposure.

Yes, it was time to go.

She cleared her throat. It was far too dry. "I'll be at the game tomorrow. Look for me."

Oh, gods. _Look for me?!_ _What a fucking girly thing to say!_

Gendry only smiled. "I will."

She grinned back and turned away, hastily beginning the trek back towards her own parking lot before she did something stupid. Like kiss him. Or slap him for what he was doing to her.

It was an effort not to look back once, but she did it, hoping that she had escaped before Robb had returned but not daring to turn around to make sure. Whatever was happening to her, it was as deadly and terrifying as it was sweet, but she had to admit to herself that Gendry Waters was unlike any man she had ever met before. He was incorrigible, furious, cool, and one of the only people in the entire world that could eat their way beneath her skin without being destroyed. He was nobody; he was everything. She was going completely out of her mind trying to classify the way he made her feel.

And she wanted him.


	11. Chapter 10

**10**

Several moments over the next few days made Gendry wish that Theon Greyjoy played for a different team, just so he could hit him with a pitch without getting in much trouble for it.

For one thing, he snored like an aurochs, interrupting Gendry's sleep despite the closed door and pillow that separated Gendry's ears from the obnoxious man's gaping, slumbering mouth. It was not quite enough to disrupt his natural sleep cycle, but on the occasion that he woke up in the middle of the night on the surprisingly comfortable pull-out bed in Robb's apartment, Theon made damn sure that Gendry spent at least a half hour grumbling to himself whilst trying to drown out the banshee in the next room. The second baseman's stern denial that the devil possessed him in the night only irritated Gendry further.

"Come off it," he drawled cockily, apathetically as Robb watched them over a cold breakfast, half a grin on his face and his mouth deliberately shut. "We all know you've got the rookie jitters, but don't put it on us that you're losing sleep over it." He elbowed Gendry, who thus spilled some milk from his cereal bowl. "'Sides, you'll choke soon enough and be back to the minors. No worries. We all know good ol' Ned wants to break you first."

And that was the other thing: Theon was just an asshole.

Gendry's second appearance with the Direwolves happened in the third game of the Lizards series, with him entering the game with one out in the seventh and a runner on second base. A groundout got him the second out on one pitch, a fastball tapped weakly to first base. The next batter, however, battled through eight pitches and finally muscled a slider into right field to score the runner from second. A flyball quickly ended the inning, and the inherited runner had scored, but the Direwolves still lead the game 6-4 at that point and maintained the lead to win the game. Overall, Gendry considered it a success.

The next day, however, as Gendry walked up the tunnel after seeing Hullen for his usual elbow therapy—which involved a lot of icing each and every day—he noticed Theon standing in the outfield with a pair of position players and Cayn, another reliever, while the rest of the team took batting practice. He hesitated and then stepped to join them when Theon's eyes swept over him like a bird of prey. The grimy little native of Pyke leaned towards his friends lounging about and said something Gendry could not hear across the distance. Every head in the vicinity turned in Gendry's direction, several of them bearing cruel or resentful expressions.

Gendry halted mid-step and did not hesitate a second time as he pivoted towards where Robb was shagging batted balls alone. At least for however horrible Theon seemed, Gendry got along quite well with Robb. He wondered if it was a Stark thing; Ned was amiable, Robb was warm and funny, and Arya was breathtaking and desirable; maybe he just got along really well with them all. The two of them, Robb and he, were becoming friends rather quickly, Robb's status as the team captain notwithstanding, and it took only a nod of greeting for them to strike up a conversation revolving primarily around the visiting Metalworkers of Rykker. It was quite successful in getting his mind off of the arrogant son of a bitch who shared their residence.

He threw that night, pitching a scoreless succession of two swinging strikeouts and a popout, and came in once more three games later with two outs to give up a single before making the next hitter groundout to Theon. Even the "you're welcome" expression the asshole sent him as they jogged into the dugout didn't dampen his mood. Four games into his major league career and he hadn't given up an earned run while striking out three across three innings.

His emergence from the shower in the locker room that night, however, was less than optimal.

With a towel wrapped around his waist, he padded from the showers through the doors and back towards his locker, immediately noticing the group of relievers crowded and huddled nearby. Whatever they were talking about, the conversation halted immediately as he walked in, and he paused, his eyebrows scrunching as he turned to face them. Perhaps not a great move, but he had never been one to back down from a challenge of any kind. Regardless of whether or not he was naked. If Theon hadn't been on the opposite side of the room, he would have suspect collusion.

The sea of relievers parted to reveal Cayn, however, and Gendry decided they were pitted against him anyway.

"What's up?" he prompted, aware of how standoffish he sounded. A few of his teammates looked up. Jory Cassel, a bearded starter ten or so years older, fully turned away from his locker, observing the scene. Somewhere near Theon, Gendry was sure, Robb's wolflike ears had perked up, as well.

"Nothing," Desmond, one of Cayn's close friends in the bullpen, said quickly.

"Nothing, Waters," Cayn repeated, standing and turning his back on Gendry as he began to rifle through his stuff in the locker, looking dejected.

Gendry secured his towel and crossed his arms across his chest. "Is there a problem, man? I don't want any bad blood, just tell me if I've done something to offend you, or whatever."

Cayn scoffed, halfway between a snicker and a gape. The man turned back around and crossed his own arms. "All right, I guess I do have a problem. I have fucking never heard of you before, and all of a sudden you're in the majors and on my team, taking one of _my _boys' spots in the rotation. That's my problem."

"Hey," Gendry said, raising his arms defensively. "I'm not taking anyone's spot, man. I'm here 'cause I can throw, same as the rest of you."

"Oh, yeah?" Desmond challenged.

Joseth, a struggling member of the starting rotation, joined in from a few paces away. "The old man let me rot in Triple-A for six years before I got a chance up here. Word on the street is you only spent a month in the system, and hadn't ever played professionally anywhere before."

"What'd you do to earn Stark's favor then, Waters?" Cayn pressed, taking a step towards Gendry, spreading his arms aggressively. "Feed him money? Naw, he wouldn't go for that, he's rich off his ass and too in love with baseball to realize he's still married. You must be fucking his daughter, or something..."

Gendry didn't remember taking the step forward, but all of a sudden someone was restraining the fist he likewise hadn't realized he'd drawn, and two or three bodies were separating him from Cayn, holding them apart as they fought to get at each other. A small uproar had gone up in the locker room, but aside from Cayn's posse and whoever was holding him back, nobody seemed to be taking sides or getting involved in any way.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Robb's scream brought everything in the locker room to a standstill. Mikken utilized the opportunity to more tightly restrain Gendry's arms from leaping towards Cayn. Gendry gave a jerk to try and break free, but even despite his above-average strength Mikken's grip was as tight as iron.

"Don't be a fool," the outfielder hissed in his ear, not relinquishing the hold one bit.

"That is unacceptable!" Robb shouted from where he was between them, rounding on Cayn, who was wedged between Desmond and Jory. Desmond was staring at Gendry with venom, but Jory's fury was directed at the man he was holding back as Robb continued his tirade. Despite the fact that the team captain wasn't wearing a shirt, he was still mightily imposing. "The both of you!" Robb rounded on Gendry, his eyes blazing with a cold fury, and added, "You should damn well know better than that!" He turned back to Cayn, jabbing a finger towards him. "You do _not _shit talk your teammates. Not in front of them, not behind their backs. You do not _accuse _them of not having earned where they are! That is not the kind of team we are! Now bloody shake on it before I kill the both of you!"

Gendry said nothing, and neither did Cayn, but they both stopped struggling. They stared at each other in mutual enmity, but Mikken slowly let go, Desmond and Jory doing the same, and Gendry managed not to pounce at the man. As much as he wanted to. A long second passed, and then both men simultaneously took a step forward and reached hands forward, albeit as though they were doing something disgusting, and grudgingly shook hands.

"If either of you—or any of you!" Robb amended, rounding on the entire locker room. "—_ever_ do that again, you will be _off this team _before you can pick up a bat!" Gendry could've sworn his rage-wracked glare fell on Theon for a long moment, before he swung away from them all and marched angrily back to his own locker.

The Direwolves watched their captain go with barely concealed stiffness . Only when Robb was back at his locker and firmly pulling his clothes back on did Gendry's teammates relax, most moving off back to their own business, a few shooting dark looks in his direction. Desmond scowled and turned his back deliberately, but Cayn and Gendry remained standing, glaring at each other. Jory and Mikken formed a buffer between them that looked coercible, at best.

Gendry sighed. "I don't want any trouble. If you think I got here off of some bribe, let me just say that you're wrong, out front. My play is why I'm here, and my play is what will decide if I stay or if I go. All right?"

"Whatever, Waters," Cayn grumbled, shaking his head. The reliever stalked back to his locker, Jory following after casting one appraising look at Gendry.

Mikken grunted and shook his head. Gendry was taller, but he felt as though his teammate was looking down upon him. "Poor move, mate. It's best you keep your head down for a while. You're not making yourself any friends by getting in shouting matches in the locker room."

Before Gendry could think up a reply to that, Mikken turned and went back to his own locker, leaving Gendry to himself, standing mostly alone in the middle of the room. Most of his teammates avoided looking at him until they had all changed into their street clothes and left. Only Theon glared nastily on his way out, but Gendry waited until he was the last one left to hoist his bag and head for the door.

As he exited the door, Robb straightened up from where he had been lounging outside, and stared into him unintelligibly. Gendry froze under the Stark son's eyes, and didn't dare to speak first, until his captain finally turned to walk up the tunnel towards the concourse and said, "Walk with me. We need to have a talk."

Gendry sighed silently before hurrying to follow Robb. _Did I fuck this up all ready? _

Neither of them spoke for several minutes and again Gendry refused to be the one to break the silence. Finally, Robb cleared his throat. "I'm sorry I yelled at you back there, but I had to. It would look no good to the rest of the team if I hadn't, and you_ were _out of line, going after Cayn like that. Regardless of what he said."

He paused, as if to see what Gendry had to say to that. Gendry very much wanted to snap about the things Cayn had been voicing, but thought that repeating them wouldn't improve his situation and so instead chose to remain silent. When it was apparent he would say nothing, Robb continued, "With that out of the way, I can understand your position. I can understand being the suspected 'favorite'. My dad was the owner of the team that drafted me... there weren't many people that didn't think there was an ulterior motive."

"Wasn't there?" Gendry asked, fully knowing it was a dangerous thing to say yet unable to keep himself from asking.

Robb glanced him over blankly for a moment, his eyes pensive. "Perhaps. Either way, it was my play that got me to this level. I made sure of it. So did my dad. The same could be said of you; you know that, I know that, and Luwin knows that. That's all that matters. It's the way you play the game that put at this level." His lips turned ever so slightly downward. "But your attitude has to change, man. You didn't make any friends in there."

"He came at me first," Gendry said quietly. He met his captain's eyes stare-for-stare. "All my life I've been dealing with slime like Cayn telling me I wasn't good enough, for school or work or now this. I'm done with it."

"I know it's frustrating," Robb replied. "I went through it, too. There will always be people like that. You can't rise to the bait. Let the way you throw the ball change their minds, all right? Not your mouth."

Gendry frowned. "Your asshole roommate isn't exactly helping it."

"Yes," Robb acknowledged with a grimace, taking a deep breath. "Theon's never been the... well, he has a slick tongue where he thinks it'll earn him some laughs or some tail, but you shouldn't let him get to you, either."

"How is he your friend?"

"We have connections. Old family connections. Never mind, I don't want to get into it, and it's none of your business. Don't throw me off. This is really important. I need to know that you can be better at controlling yourself than what you just showed me in that locker room. I'm rooting for you, Gendry, I'm pulling for you, but I'm the captain, first, and I don't let my players step out of line. Especially with each other. I meant what I said back there, about it ever happening again."

Gendry remembered the things Cayn had said, and felt his fists curl. "He basically told me I bought my way here. I have never worked harder for anything that this in my life. Did you hear what he said?"

"I did, actually. Including the part about my sister..." Gendry kept his eyes firmly forward, but Robb did not pause or seem to notice. "...but I let that slide much the same as I'm letting you off with a slap on the back of the hand. Get tougher, Gendry. You're tough, but you need to take that sort of thing. Get tougher. Do we understand each other?"

Most people telling Gendry Waters that he needed to get tougher would have been scoffed at. He had practically raised himself in an overflowing orphanage, fought his way through a learning disorder throughout all of his minimal schooling, and dragged himself through the past few years of his life by the skin of his teeth, clinging to baseball as his only relief. He never had a shoulder to cry on, a mother to shelter him, a father to raise him, and he had shrugged all of that off without sparing the energy to shed a tear about it. He was tougher at ten years of age than most people were at the end of long lives. Anyone who told him otherwise was asking for a hospital visit.

From Robb Stark, he decided that maybe he could learn to be a little bit tougher still. Grudgingly, correctly, he nodded slowly, and Robb returned the gesture gladly. His captain clapped him on the shoulder, grinning through his short, brownish-red beard and saying, "Then we need never speak of it again. Our plane leaves in four hours. Let's go get our stuff and meet the bus outside the complex."

The plane was taking them to Casterly Rock for the beginning of his first major league away trip against the Lions. Gendry was excited and anxious about it at the same time, though when it came down to it he eagerly anticipated the opportunity to pitch before a full-scale, major league crowd that completely hated him and his team. He knew enough baseball history to know there was no love lost between the Casterly Rock Lions and the Winterfell Direwolves.

As Robb had suggested, they retrieved their baggage from Robb's apartment and boarded the team bus outside the apartment complex bound for the airport. It was a short ride, and Gendry used it to reflect on his predicament in the locker room, steeling himself to take such jibes, even from his teammates. If taking it was what was required to stay where he was, then he would be damned if he didn't do it.

His only other surprise of the day occurred as he was walking down to his designated terminal alone, Robb having passed through security in deep discussion with Luwin a few minutes before. Mikken had stayed close to him since the bus, as though weary of the other guys perhaps trying to provoke him in some manner, but Cayn and the others had minded their manners, and Gendry had left the right fielder in order to be alone with his thoughts once more for the brief walk to the terminal.

He was strolling along the promenade lost in his head when someone called his name softly from off to his left. Snapping from his head violently, he turned to find Arya leaning against a pillar, wearing a dark hoodie with her arms crossed, looking at him with an amused grin. He realized that his face must have been quite scrunched as he'd been walking, and scowled as his feet completely stopped, bringing him instead to stand before her. He couldn't help them doing that; if they hadn't, he would have done it consciously. He wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't have followed her off the ends of the earth.

"Hi," he said dumbly.

"Hey," she said back, still grinning.

"Uh..." Gendry glanced up the promenade, looking for her brother. "Robb just went up, if you want to catch him—"

"I know," she cut him off. "I already talked to him. It was actually you I was looking for."

His heart skipped four million and a half beats. "Oh," he found himself sighing. For a moment, he could only blink at her, and he was surprised to see color blossoming in her cheeks. Resolutely, though, her expression never changed, nor did her eyes leave his, and he grinned at her attempt to cover the quite obvious blush. Then again, he was stubbornly trying to maintain a cool face over the equivalent burning of his cheeks, the same as she was.

He had succeeded in making the moment awkward. After a few too many seconds of pause, Arya nodded after her brother and said, "He told me you got into a little scuffle in the locker room today."

"He did?" It wasn't a complete surprise. He had gained the sense that the Stark family was very close. Nevertheless, it seemed a detail Robb wouldn't have mentioned in passing, unless Arya had shown specific interest or he felt it was something she need to know. Feeling frustrated, though he didn't know if it was with Robb or with himself, Gendry looked down at his feet. "It wasn't much of a scuffle. It would have been a brawl..."

"Gods," Arya hissed, her eyes widening. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he said quickly, remembering exactly what Cayn had accused him of. "Someone said something I didn't like—I _really_ didn't like—and he deserved to get pummeled. Robb stepped in first."

"A fucking good thing he did," she growled, and then punched his arm. It didn't hurt, but it almost made him smile. "If you hit one of your teammates, my dad would have had you off of the team before you could blink!"

Gendry had no doubt Ned Stark would do exactly what his daughter said he would, which made him even more disgruntled, realizing how close he had been to the chopping block. "It's all settled now. Robb yelled at me, I'll sort out my differences, and we'll all live happily ever after. Nothing to worry about."

Arya didn't look convinced, but she seemed to realize—_for once_—that it was something he didn't want to talk about. She shuffled her own feet, dancing between toes, pressing her way off of the pillar, a step closer to him, his arms still crossed tightly. He realized that they were actually rather close together, something that made him feel very at ease and very uncomfortable at the same time.

"I haven't seen you in a while," Arya said, forcing him to focus on her voice. She sounded disappointed. "I haven't gotten a chance to tell you that you've been throwing really well, but you need to tone your release point, and come more over the ball. You're still hanging too many high in the zone and—"

"I've got coaches for technique, I've got coaches for velocity," Gendry laughed, smiling down at her, "I've even got coaches for etiquette now. I don't need, and I don't want, you to be my coach. I want you to be my friend."

Arya bit her lip, and then was clearly unable to restrain the smile that broke past her cheeks. "You are my friend. That's why I came to catch you before the plane ride. I wanted to wish you good luck for the trip."

"You could have done that by text message."

She scoffed, cringing. "Yeah, except you take fifty years to respond."

"I'm not _that _slow," he protested. It wasn't a fair accusation, anyway; he'd only owned a phone for two months, and didn't exactly have anyone to text before her. Besides the two or three texts they'd exchanged since the night of his major league debut, he hadn't sent any, at all. He could hardly be blamed for still being a slow typist.

"Well, text me once or twice when you're in Lannisport," she settled on, adopting an almost diffident glint in her eye that he found unconditionally adorable. "Okay?"

"Okay," he heard himself agree. He was defenseless, helpless. He would have agreed to being hit five times in the head with a baseball bat, if she were looking at him like that. So high on her face as he was, he was only belatedly jubilant that she had been the one to press their lack of contact, as he had not quite been sure he had the courage to do it, himself. He swallowed his soaring elation and nodded. "I'll be sure to."

"Okay," she said softly. They weren't standing very far away from each other at all.

There was another long pause, when he suddenly noticed several of his teammates walking past. Cayn was one of them. Gendry darted frantic glances at them, but it seemed that all of them were pointedly avoiding looking in his direction. Even Cayn seemed intent elsewhere, which was either a courtesy Gendry hadn't expected or a potent jab at his prior guess, which he now assumed correct. Whichever it was, Gendry was still thankful none of them had made any indication that they noticed him and Arya, even if they most likely had.

"I have... a plane to catch... I guess." He sounded very dumb, he knew, but he found himself very reluctant to go.

Arya seemed not to have noticed the passage of the Direwolves, and took a prominent step back. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. I shouldn't be keeping you."

"I don't mind." Sometimes, he had no idea where the things he said came from. The prior was an example; the coming sentence was another. "I'm glad I got to see you."

"Me, too," she all but whispered. "Bye, Gendry."

He nodded his head and swept a half-bow. "M'lady."

Her punch had his arm stinging until they had begun their descent into Lannisport.

* * *

Casterly Rock was essentially a conglomerate of money. Gendry wouldn't have been surprised if the residents had so much money that they fused it together to make the bricks that made up their multi-million dollar homes. He found it curious that the suburb of Lannisport, one of the largest and definitely the wealthiest of the Southern cities, would be the location of the region's major league baseball team. Although he'd already played baseball in Lannisport, with the Thunder, Casterly Rock was something completely different. The spires of what he thought were massive cathedrals ended up being condominium complexes. Several structures he had taken for official buildings were actually mansions. Having grown up in absolute poverty, Gendry was completely thunderstruck by the supercilious living style of the habitants. He found it hard to look around him without curling his hands into fists; compared to King's Landing, the place he considered the heart of his baseball life, this magnificently beautiful and hateful city seemed far too pompous to appreciate the sport.

When he voiced as much to Robb, his captain merely grinned ironically. "This is Lannister country, man. What did you expect?" And he said no more of the subject.

The Lions' stadium was just as incredible as the city. The thing had _five _levels, could seat almost eighty thousand people, and from the outside it looked a lot like a gigantic palace of color and brilliance. Gendry could hardly believe that the wealthy would be so interested in baseball as to ever pack it, but Robb whispered as they entered the stadium in the early afternoon for the first game of the series that Casterly Rock had sold out every game in the last decade. If the people were anything like those he had played in front of in Lannisport, Gendry imagined he had a very long series ahead of him.

Tywin Lannister threw out the ceremonial first pitch that night. The crowd roared more for that moment than they did for the rest of game, in which the Direwolves were railed and Gendry did not pitch. He couldn't help but wonder if it was punishment for his bout in the locker room before leaving Winterfell, considering that six of the eight relievers threw and he was not one of them. Then again, even Cayn seemed nicer to him that day, if only in the sense that there was not a single rude comment in his direction the entire game. Nevertheless, he itched to leave the bullpen, to get in the game and hurl at the Lions' with everything he had, channeling his frustration with his team's losing state towards winning the game.

He was forced to watch, however, helplessly, as pitcher after pitcher was decimated. They surrendered not one but two home runs to Gregor Clegane, the massive right fielder of the Lions. Brother to Sandor of the Monarchs, Clegane was listed under seven feet but looked as though he were eight, probably weighing over three hundred and fifty pounds with arms nearly as thick as Gendry's legs put together—and he was rather muscular himself. The gigantic man was known as the Mountain Who Swings, and it hardly looked like more than a twitch of his fingers would send the ball flying five hundred feet beyond the outfield fence. He didn't react to the fans; he glared furiously at every one—the crowd, his opponents, his teammates—and generally gave off the impression that he was moments from tearing everyone around him limb from limb. It seemed the umpires were reluctant to make a call against him, but Gendry could hardly blame them; he was mortified of the man when he was sitting two hundred feet behind a safe, bullpen wall. He was not so ashamed of the fact that he couldn't say as much that night to Arya in a text message.

Needless to say, the Direwolves were relatively shortstaffed the next day, fatigued and demoralized from their loss as they were and nursing six sore arms in the bullpen. Robb appeared more frustrated than ever with his team but was clearly restraining himself from admitting. That was another thing he told Arya, and she explained that Robb was rather used to turnarounds and that the team's prolonged slump had really taken a toll on his spirits, even as much as he was fighting it. Even Luwin was beginning to show signs of being stressed; Gendry had never seen the man in any manner other than calm and collected.

Jory was back on the hill for the second game of the series and that was a fortunate thing for Winterfell's relievers. They needed many innings out of their starter, but Gendry had a secret desire in the back of his mind for Jory to fall out somewhere in the mix so that he would have his chance that night. Once more, his luck seemed to completely fall out; Jory didn't brush a hundred pitches until the seventh inning, not surrendering a run. The Mountain went down on strikes twice, breaking a bat each time and realistically making Gendry fear for Jory's life. The game was locked at a scoreless tie until the top of the eighth. With Hallis and Theon on first and second, respectively, Robb knocked a letters-high fastball into the right center gap. Hallis scored easily, and for a moment Gendry thought Theon would as well; the Mountain charged the ball like a bull, seizing it in a hand that could have wrapped around a basketball, and threw a bullet from the warning track that the catcher caught on the fly to get Theon by a hairs-breadth to end the inning.

Gendry glanced down the line, completely perplexed that no one had been called to warm-up for the next inning, despite the fact that Jory had over a hundred pitches. Even as the thought occurred to him, however, Desmond, who had thrown the previous night, was told to stand and get ready to go in-game. As Gendry watched Desmond climb to his fight, he was filled with a surge of annoyance; it seemed that his explosion in the locker room had cost him more than he thought. Luwin would apparently turn to someone exhausted than his fresh arm. He made sure to keep his seething to himself, conscious that an outburst may only aggravate the grievance. Seethe he did, though, all the same.

Jory surrendered a single to the first hitter of the eighth, and Desmond was called on immediately while Luwin arranged a double switch with the home plate umpire. Gendry watched the lefty jog on towards the mound to the hiss of the crowd, and just as Desmond reached it the bullpen coach placed the phone on the receiver and turned back to them. "Waters. You're up."

He scrambled to without a second thought, grabbing his glove and a ball without even thinking about it, so eager was he to get into the game after having to watch uselessly as his team got clobbered the previous day. Even as he stretched his arm out, he paid attention to what was happening in-game, with Desmond.

The first batter, a lefty hitter, walked on four pitches. The second hitter, another lefty, took strike one before watching four consecutive breaking balls miss the plate, and then took first base almost smugly. Suddenly, where Jory had been tossing a gem moments before, he was out of the game and Desmond had walked the bases loaded.

The phone rang. The bullpen coach picked it up, listened, replaced. "Waters. Go."

_Finally_.

His jog to the mound was a leisurely, as were his warm-up pitches after Luwin handed him the ball. Neither his manager nor Robb gave any indication that he had been punished for his outbreak or that he was there for any other reason other than to play baseball, and so that was what he immediately set out to do. This was what he was made to do; the pressure was on with the bases loaded, the crowd was jeering at him, and he had never thrown the baseball away from home before, yet he felt perfectly at ease as the Lions' hitter stepped into the box, appearing for all intents and purposes as though he was about to smash a grand slam.

Gendry was unfazed. Robb called fastball, and he delivered the pitch flawlessly for strike one. The batter gave no indication that he had been caught off-balance by the speed of his throw, but he showed a lot of disorientation when he swung late and missed the second pitch for strike two.

_Got you_.

The batter was thoroughly lost now, and Gendry knew a slider would put him away, for sure. Robb, however, was in no mood for messing around, and called immediately for a third fastball. Risky, perhaps, but... he was there to throw hard. Dondarrion had told him so, Luwin had told him so, Ned Stark had told him so. _Keep it at the knees. Why not?_

The hitter didn't swing, and walked back to the dugout without complaint as the crowd roared in disapproval and disgust.

A slider dropped into the strike zone, completely fooling the next batter, for the first strike of the next at-bat. Another slider, peeling across the zone and practically teasing the very end of the batter's bat, was nicked into Robb's mitt for strike two. Up 0-2, Robb read Gendry's mind and barely even flashed the fastball in his mix of signs before settling into the crouch. Gendry threw the ball as hard as he possibly could, and the batter's swing was defensive, making him look foolish as he struck out.

It struck Gendry then that he had just sent two straight hitters down on strikes with barely a thought that the bases were loaded. Any mistake on his part, and a run would have scored. Yet he had just struck out two _major league hitters_ with almost no concern.

Never mind. Concern returned very largely as he watched the Mountain climb out of the dugout and step into the on-deck circle, glaring at Gendry as though he were a very slappable fly. Even fifty feet from the plate, where the real hitter was digging into the box, anxiety crashed back into his mind with more force than he could have imagined.

_What the hell are you flustered for? _he scolded himself mentally, kicking dirt off the mound and forcing his mind to focus on the current batter. _You've got two down. No one has scored. Your team's still up by one. Get this guy out and you won't have to worry about it._

But his first fastball missed the plate. And then the second one did, as well. He let the breath leave his lips in a screaming hiss as he stalked back to the mound, berating himself. Now he was in the hole—the hitter would be looking for a fastball down the middle of the plate, which, unfortunately, was exactly what he had to throw anyway.

Then his third fastball missed inside, and he was suddenly down three balls to nothing with nowhere to put the runner should he throw a fourth ball. And the Mountain was looming on-deck, casually swinging a pair of tree trunks to prepare himself for an at-bat.

"Come on, come on." His furious murmurs had become audible. "Do this, Waters. Do it. This is a big place for you. This is your personal challenge." He stepped into the stretch, dusting sweat from his arms and trying to breathe deeply. He had to throw the fastball; the batter wouldn't swing, not with two outs, down by a run, with the bases loaded. All he had to do was hit the strike zone. And then do it twice more. "Come on, you worthless _bastard_. Throw the damn ball."

So he did. The batter let it go by, and it just clipped the edge of the strike zone.

"One down, one down. Two to go. Two to get." The Mountain looked hungry, and Gendry gritted his teeth at himself, self-determination and stubbornness overriding his fear. "Get it done. Get it done."

Robb eyed the batter's eyes for a moment before calling for a 3-1 slider, which surprised Gendry. It was a rather practical move, after four straight baseballs, but still a risk to throw a breaking ball on 3-1. A miss would bring in a run, and tie the game. Gendry was about to shake him off, but stayed his head at the last instant: Robb deserved a little trust. Robb had been the only one who had visibly been there for him during his transition from the minors to the major leagues. Robb was his catcher, _his _catcher.

So he threw the 3-1 slider. It hurtled for the batter's face for half its length, before dropping down and crossing the inside corner of the plate. The bat never left the hitter's shoulder, and he had taken a step out of the box to jog to first when the umpire called strike two.

The crowd voiced its displeasure, but Gendry was too caught in his own pumping adrenaline to notice. This was what he had been born for; a must-have pitch in a must-have situation. He refused to look towards the Mountain, aware that one pitch would keep him from facing that monstrosity. He only need one pitch.

He stepped to the rubber, and knew in his mind that even if Robb dropped a slider call, he would shake his captain off this time. He was going to throw fastball.

Robb was on the same page, though, and there was no need for a shake-off. Gendry came set, holding his step for an extra long second, knowing the runners would get a head start with the full count pitch. Time slowed ever so slightly, and he heard the wisp of his breath as it snuck quietly out between his teeth.

He took his step and threw.

It was true, with the perfect release point and the straight, spinning effect he was so familiar with. It darted flat downward towards the batter's knees, destined to cross the heart of the plate, with no way to go anywhere but through the strike zone unless it was hit. It wasn't; the batter swung through the pitch, and Gendry exhaled monumentally.

Robb shot to his feet and pumped his air triumphantly, shouting out loud in exultation as several Direwolves behind Gendry in the field made similar noises. The crowd erupted in anger, booing loudly, but Gendry was only aware of the dugout and his teammates yelling in excitement at getting out of such a jam with no runs scoring. His feet took him to the dugout, where every member of the team was waiting on the top steps to give him high-fives, to congratulate him for his epic inning, striking out the side after coming in with the bases loaded and nobody out. Gendry didn't look back towards the Mountain, completely relieved as he was that he didn't have to face the massive man, but he wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the man had broken another bat with the mere fury of not being able to hit.

The throng of high-fives didn't let up as he threaded his teammates to sit down on the bench. Jory came over and fist-bumped him over a whispered, "Way to be, Waters," which meant more than any other praise from the veteran could. To Gendry's surprise, even Desmond drifted over and came a high-five and a mumbled exclamation of impression. Hullen brought him an ice-lined towel to wrap around his arm, and after a while he sat back, his teammates still offering him praise and sweating still cascading around his face, too momentarily proud to move.

As the Lions took the field for the top of the ninth, Rodrik Cassel, the pitching coach, drifted over to him. "Nice going, Gendry," Cassel nodded, sliding onto the bench beside Gendry. "Feel comfortable out there? You mowed through them."

"I felt good, yeah," Gendry responded. He had felt godlike, honestly. Except when being stared down by the Mountain, but that was different.

Cassel gave him a brief rundown about his mechanics and the hitters he had faced and then quickly rejoined Luwin, who stood near the tunnel back to the clubhouse, silently watching as Mikken approached the plate for the first out. Gendry watched him go, absent-mindedly, but Luwin immediately leaned towards Cassel and began to speak, loud enough so that Gendry was able to snap out of his faze and make out every word.

"Who do you want to give the ninth to?" Luwin murmured. "Nobody's been consistent enough. We have a slim cushion."

"You have as much say to it as I do, Luwin," Cassel growled back in clear frustration, crossing his arms as his eyes drifted back towards the bullpen. "Gods, everyone's either tired or hurt. I don't trust a single arm out there right now to finish it up."

Luwin's eyes turned away from the game, swinging down the dugout, and Gendry quickly looked away, just before his manager was able to see that he had been eavesdropping. He had to strain, but he was still able to make out Luwin's next words. "What about Gendry?"

"Waters?" There was a pause, presumably in which Cassel turned to glare at him. "Unproven."

"Look what he just did, Rodrik. Don't tell me you feel asleep through that."

"No, I didn't, but... it doesn't matter anyway. The pitcher's spot is in two holes. You'll have to send in a pinch hitter, Waters will be out of the game."

Even as Cassel said the words, Mikken grounded out to third base. Luwin grunted, and then did something Gendry didn't expect. "Who says I have to send up a pinch hitter? Gendry!"

Doing his best to pretend he hadn't been listening, Gendry turned quickly to face his manager, all but popping to his feet. Luwin beckoned gingerly with an old hand, and he hastily jumped to his cleats, hatless and with an arm still wrapped in the towel. "Yes, sir?"

"Grab a bat," Luwin deadpanned. "Get on deck."

Gendry blinked. "Sir?"

Luwin glared at him. "You're going to go up to plate."

_Oh_. "Coach, I've never hit off of... I haven't had batting practice in..." _The pitching machine. Swinging through a ball at the surprise of hearing a musical voice. Arya._ "...awhile, sir. I can't—"

"You're not going up there to swing, son," Luwin said. The faint crinkle of his cheeks was the closest Gendry had ever seen the old man to displaying amusement. "In fact, don't swing. Just take the strikeout. I need you in for the ninth inning, all right. Just get through the at-bat." Gendry didn't move, his jaw hanging open yet in surprise, and Luwin had to slap his arm. "Go on, then! Hurry up!"

Without quite realizing how he had made it there, Gendry was suddenly up, out of the dugout, standing in the circular white box that signified the warm-up zone for a hitter as his teammate at the plate quickly dropped behind in the count. Someone had handed him a bat and plopped a helmet onto his head, but he couldn't remember who or how. He knew he should probably take some swings, while he was there—even though he wasn't going up to the plate to hit—but he was too mortified to even move. He stood there, dumbly, watching his teammate strike out and the ball get thrown around the horn.

And then he was moving, walking towards the plate, for his first ever big league plate appearance.

He heard his name announced distantly over the loudspeakers as the hitter, heard the crowd boo furiously at the pitcher who had decimated their team's hopes in the previous inning. It was all he could do to situate himself in the box, facing the right direction, making sure the umpire and hitter were at his back and that he was looking towards the pitcher. He was more nervous than when he had first taken the mound in Single-A.

Hitting in the big leagues was clearly nothing like hitting in the streets. The first pitch was easily the quickest ball he had ever been thrown, taking all of his mental toughness to prevent himself from cringing. The scoreboard registered the pitch as only traveling at eighty-nine miles per hour, and he had to curse at how foolish he felt.

_So that's what that feels like_. He left his bat on his shoulder, just as he'd been told to do.

Just as he was beginning to relax in the box, realizing that all pressure was off, the next pitch was a fastball that hurtled right at him. He more than half-expected it to curve into the strike zone, but it continued on straight until it was too late for him to avoid it. There was nothing for it but to turn his back to the pitch in an effort to protect himself; it slammed into him square in the back.

_Ow._

His dugout erupted in roars of disapproval. As he cringed in pain, managing to keep from audibly groaning, several players stood up in their spots, glaring at the mound. Even in the middle of his short anguish, Gendry was enlightened by how many Direwolves were seemingly ready to charge the mound for him. Luwin was on the top step, screaming at the home plate umpire to toss the pitcher from the game unconditionally.

The umpire did no such thing, but Gendry's heart warmed at the mere attempt. Both teams and pitchers _were _warned, though, and Gendry trotted down to first, the throb in his back already receding. He did not so much as glance in the pitcher's direction.

He had never run the bases. Professionally. At least. The first base coach told him to wait a step off of the bag, easily in range to get back on a pickoff throw. He did so, eyes locked on the pitcher to make sure he wouldn't be caught napping for the third out, but it was futile, in the end; the first pitch to the next hitter was popped straight up on the infield. Gendry jogged lazily to second, watching it in the air until it was caught.

Then he turned to jog back into the dugout, and the Mountain nearly ran him over—literally—as the man who outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds earthquaked past. The growl and look on the Mountain's face would have killed lesser men. As it was, Gendry gulped, reality sinking in.

He was going out to pitch the ninth. With a one-run lead. A save situation. And the first hitter was going to be the Mountain.

His legs trembled before he left the dugout, pausing only to slurp down some water before jogging back out to the hill. Luwin and Cassel believed in him; that thought empowered him through the warm-up pitches, aware of the Mountain's massive arms and massive eyes glaring at him from the Lions' dugout. All too soon, Robb was throwing through to second base, Gendry was taking the throw back from third base, and the bottom of the ninth inning was beginning.

Gendry took the mound, watching the Mountain dig into the box, and steeled himself, suddenly angry for being so childish. _You're a fucking man, Waters. Get the job done. Don't be afraid of a big bat. You're better than that_.

Robb wisely chose the slider for the first pitch. Gendry nodded and came set for a long instant, second-guessing everything that was about to happen, before finally striding to the plate and releasing the baseball. It arced beautifully, but caught way too much of the plate, and even before the Mountain swung Gendry knew that he was in trouble.

The crack of the bat was so sweet that Gendry swore aloud instantly. The ball was a tiny sphere of nothingness only a second after contact, so high in the dark night sky that Gendry almost lost it with the glare of the lights. He watched it sail farther and farther and farther away from the plate, getting smaller and smaller and smaller as his heart sank lower and lower and lower...

...until the ball sailed a foot wide of the pole in left field. Foul.

His sigh of relief was drowned by the crowd's furious bellow. A foot; that's how close the game had been to being tied. Gendry turned around to find Robb standing only a few paces away, him too watching where the ball had only just avoided being a home run.

His captain's eyes drifted slowly to Gendry's own, and Gendry only said. "Let's not do that again."

Robb said nothing. He nodded and trotted back to the plate. Everything that needed to be said had been.

By the time he got there, the Mountain was back in the box, looking madder than ever, eyes wide in fury. Gendry swatted away the grip fear tried to take on him, refusing to be intimidated. There was no time for it. He had three outs to get and a game to win.

Robb called for a fastball away. Gendry agreed and came set, not even bothering to pause with no runners on base before slinging his pitch. The Mountain watched it go by, shaking his head as if disgusted he hadn't been able to swing at it, and ball one was called as it missed the plate outside. Gendry was undeterred; the ball was not hurtling over the fence at two hundred miles per hour, and that was a plus any day.

Another fastball was called, and Gendry knew it was true this time, a low, inside heater that was quite possibly the best pitch he had ever made. It was halfway to the plate when the Mountain's body language told Gendry he would swing. Managing not to flinch in any form, Gendry waited for the inevitable crack of the bat that never came. The Mountain clean swung through the pitch, and suddenly it was 1-2.

He couldn't possibly have relayed to anyone what went on in his head before the next pitch. Most of it was probably empty air, him going light-headed as he sucked in deep breaths. He had the Mountain That Swings down in the count. The Mountain That Swings, _Gregor fucking Clegane_, had swung and missed at a pitch that he, Gendry Waters, had thrown. It was almost unthinkable.

There was no telling what Robb would call. The Mountain was now beyond anger; he was murderous. He would have caught up to the fastball by now, traveling at ninety-nine miles per hour or not, and the slider had been crushed, albeit foul. Anything was a guess now, and baseball was a numbers game. It didn't come down to how fast he could throw or how far the Mountain could hit it: at that pitch, Gendry had to make the Mountain miss. Straight up. There was no secret to it.

So he shook off the slider when Robb called for it. He was throwing the fastball, no ifs, ands, or buts.

He didn't spare thought for it. He just had to throw it. Everything was the same. The motion, the release, the smooth flip of his fingers was the same as he had done a thousand times before.

The Mountain was swinging, the pitch heading waist-high over the center of the plate, a carbon copy of the pitch he had thrown to finish the last inning. Gendry's mind went completely blank. He had no idea what would happen, but he knew that if the cameras were trained on him at that moment and if Arya was watching, his face would have been as seamless as his mind was thoughtless. Like the curious wonder of a baby.

The third bat of the day broke over the Mountain's knee. Robb caught the pitch and seemed to have a difficult time realizing it was there before he threw it down to third base. Gendry stared at the plate for several long seconds after the Mountain vowed murder through eye contact, and only then turned away, as he realized what had just happened.

The scoreboard cleared, and one out was recorded. Gendry had just struck out the Mountain.

The rest of the inning was a flat blur. He was vaguely aware of throwing five pitches to the next hitter, one missing the strike zone and one being fouled off with two strikes before his fifth strikeout in only two innings was recorded. The last hitter only took three pitches; three fastballs, each one down the heart of the plate and unhittable, and all of a sudden the game was over. Robb was walking out to meet him at the mound, a gigantic grin spread across his auburn face, holding out the gameball for him to take.

"Congratulations, Gendry," Robb said.

"Good call," he replied with a smile.

Robb's expression turned to a smirk. "Which one? They were all good."

They both turned to greet their teammates already forming a line in the infield and outfield, going along and high-fiving each other for the win. Gendry didn't know if he'd ever felt as good as he did high-fiving his fellow Direwolves, then, hearing them scold him good-naturedly for making their jobs boring the last two innings, listening to them praise him for his pitching. He felt accepted in that moment, even more so when the line of players ran out and he himself turned around to being high-fiving the line of people that had been waiting on the bench. Luwin actually grinned triumphantly at him, nearly knocking him off of his feet in shock.

Whether truly accepted by his teammates or just being wrapped up with them in the moment, Gendry felt happier than he ever had in his life in the locker room. Cayn didn't try to provoke him; indeed, as Desmond had, the reliever walked over to awkwardly and reluctantly congratulate Gendry on his unbelievable performance. Atop that, Rodrik Cassel came over and did far less postgame barking than usual, showering more compliments than criticism, in fact, and his nephew veteran Jory engaged a comparison discussion on how they had pitched to the Mountain. It wasn't every day that Gregor Clegane struck out three times in a game. They both agreed that neither of them should walk down many dark back alleys anytime soon.

He was halfway through pulling a sweater over his shoulder when Luwin entered the locker room, still wearing his game uniform, and searched around with his eyes before they fell on Gendry. The manager strode over leisurely but fluidly to where he stood. "Gendry, please come with me. The press wants a word."

Gendry's hands slipped on the sweater, and a fingernail dragged a short scratch along his side. "Excuse me?"

"Come on," Luwin said, gesturing to be followed. His body language suggested that it would be intelligent to heed him, and delay would not be taken lightly. The press? The press wanted to talk with him?

_Wow_. He exchanged a quick glance with Robb a few lockers away, who nodded after Luwin dramatically. Fumbling still, he pulled the shirt back into place and bounced on one foot as he pulled on both of his shoes before rushing after his manager.

Luwin did not speak a word as he led the way down the tunnel towards where they had entered the facility on the concourse earlier. Instead of taking it all the way, however, he veered through a side door that was guarded by a security officer, who nodded at them as they went through. The door opened up into a small back room with a conference table and a few chairs, and a pair of TVs in the back. Instead of pausing, however, Luwin proceeded across the room to another door in the back, opening it and gesturing Gendry through. Gendry passed, and then suddenly he was climbing a pair of steps onto a short platform, where a chair sat in front of a mess of microphones on a table.

As soon as he emerged, lights began to flash about the room—cameras going off several times a second, capturing his appearance for every second as he unsteadily walked to the chair. Off to the side, a gray-haired man with a fatherly expression was the only friendly face. In front of the platform, spread across and jammed into the wide room were dozens of reporters, some scribbling furiously on sketchpads, others tapping away at tablets with lightning reflex. All watched Gendry approach the chair as though he were the prize fish waiting to be snared. Such was the glory of Westerosi media, waiting to pick the hero of the night apart.

He sat down in chair gingerly, hoping his face didn't portray him as tongue-tied as he felt. Between facing the Mountain again or facing these leeches, he wasn't sure which he preferred. A dozen reporters raised their hands, and he was just wondering whether or not he had to call on them himself—he had never done this press thing before, of course, and it was mildly startling the first time—but the fatherly man off to the side saved him the embarrassment by quickly calling on a beautiful, dark-haired woman who stood immediately, pen and paper in hand.

"Mr. Waters," she greeted curtly. "Arianne Martell. Sun Times. First of all, congratulations on a fantastic performance tonight. Two innings pitched, six batters faced and six strikeouts. What was your mental approach, coming into the game with the bases loaded and one out in the eighth?"

Gendry blinked at her, and cleared his throat, leaning too close to the microphones. His voice came out far too loud at first, until he adjusted his position. "I needed to get outs."

He leaned back, not knowing what else to say and not knowing what else they expected him to say. When it became clear that he had said all he was going to on the question, the reporters in the audience exchanged furtive glances with one another, and Arianne Martell clearly became annoyed. On second thought, she wasn't actually that beautiful. Or, at least, Gendry knew other women that he would prefer. At least one.

The next question came from an older, stressed gentleman going by the name of Merritt Frey, from the Twins Gazette. "Mr. Waters, before tonight I honestly had never heard of you. You clearly got a big rise through the minor leagues to make a big league impression on your coaching staff. How did you make it to Winterfell?"

"Um," Gendry began. The question irked him; it was too close to an insinuation akin to Cayn's accusations to warm his heart. He chose sarcasm and rebelliousness over cooperation. "I took a bus."

A few good-natured chuckles went up about the room, but many reporters began to eye one another as if they had no idea what they had been thinking, asking for the opportunity to interview him. Nevertheless, hands still went up.

The next who stood had greasy hair curved around his face, wearing dark-rimmed glasses and a short beard that made his lean face seem older than it was. There was something familiar about him. "Bronn. King's Landing Chronicle. Your heat fastball is one of the best in the league, clearly. Hard to believe something of that caliber could so easily slip through the cracks of the system. Nevertheless, it's treasure where it's found. What's put you on a level where you can compete with the players around you?"

Gendry watched the reporter sit down. Of the three who had stood, Bronn was clearly the most confident. Gendry remembered now: the same Bronn who had played for the Monarchs ten years before, run into behavioral issues with the league and had been eventually washed out of the sport beneath a train of suspensions. Bronn's words had guile, though, a challenging guile that Gendry could not resist. This was not a man trying to make a mockery of him; this was a man testing him to see what he was worth.

"What's competition but what you put into it?" he said, at length, staring right at Bronn. "If I could throw as hard but didn't have an urge to win in me, I wouldn't have done what I did. It wasn't divine destiny out there; it was determination to win and a lot of luck pooled together into two innings. What put me on their level of competition? Desire. Desire to be where they are and do what they do and beat them in doing it. You can't teach that desire. It's something you just have to have from birth, and I have it. I compete because I _can_, and that's good enough for me, and clearly baseball, too. Next question."

Half of the reporters seemed impressed by his answer, including the miniscule nod Bronn seemed to give him as Gendry turned away. The other half were clearly perplexed and still convinced he was insane, and the rest of the session was stiff and restrained, every question tentative, trained to weed out an answer where Gendry was reluctant to give them. He felt as if the reporters were trying to pry into his head, and he didn't like it. His thoughts were his own and he wouldn't be broken beneath these leeches.

Finally, after a dozen questions had come and gone, Luwin stepped forward from where he had been waiting in the background and announced. "All right. That's plenty. Thank you all, but we will take our leave of you now."

Gendry couldn't leave the room fast enough. So, his first press conference was not exactly a smashing success, but then again, he had never been a big talker. He didn't care, anyway; the papers could show him in any light they wanted. It wouldn't affect the way he played his game or the way he considered himself. He was far too strong in his self-conviction to ever doubt that. Besides, whatever he said, he _had _struck out six batters in two innings. That statistic spoke for itself.

The bus ride back to the hotel was more jovial than usual but also subdued. Robb spoke little as they made their way up to the room they were sharing, and Gendry was still caught in the moment, so excited from the residue adrenaline that he didn't feel the exhaustion he knew he would later. His arm was not used to throwing two innings, but even it did not hurt him much a few hours after the game. In the morning, it would probably burn, but for the time being Gendry was too awake and enthused to sleep, he was sure.

It wasn't until the door had closed behind him that he checked his cell phone, so unused to using it as he was. As soon as he did, he literally flinched in place in surprise: he had 3 missed calls and 5 text messages waiting from him. It only took a moment of checking to see that they had all come from Arya, beginning shortly after game time, and that they all were tinged with both excitement at his performance and frustration with his inability to respond. Irrationally, he felt guilty for not checking his phone sooner, and then foolish for having such a thought. Nevertheless, even after checking the time and confirming it was after midnight, Gendry wanted nothing more at that moment than to hear Arya's voice tell him that he had thrown amazingly that night.

He looked up from his phone's screen, fingers itching to press the redial button, and watched the brother of the girl in question beginning climbing into bed without hardly taking the time to undress. He fought a silent battle with himself for a long second, before coughing. "Hey, uh, I'm going to go and call someone real quick. I'll be back in a bit."

Robb yawned and waved him off indifferently, probably already half-asleep. Gendry breathed a sigh of relief that he had not been forced to concoct a lie as to _who _he was calling—no telling how Robb would react if he knew the truth, a thought which raised another stir of guilt inside of him—and slipped out of the hotel room as Robb switched off the lights.

_What should I say to her? How should I be? _

He cursed himself, strutting down the hallway and tapping his phone against his lips anxiously. It was just _Arya_. He was just Gendry. They had a strange sort of friendship, and she didn't seem to expect anything out of him other than what he already was. But he wanted her to expect...

Something. More. He had no idea. He had no idea what he was doing with her, what he wanted from her, why he couldn't sleep at night anymore without picturing her face bearing one of the smiles he could always seem to coax from her. Were those thoughts right, or should he feel as guilty about those as he did about not thinking to text her after the game? Were his intentions true, if he was uncomfortable telling Robb that he was slipping out after midnight in order to call his captain's little sister?

He sighed. Thinking hurt.

Instead of thinking, he walked to the vending machine that stood in a little alcove off of the hotel hallway and leaned against, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold tile in front of it. Resolving to put less thoughts into his actions and begin the conversation with Arya as charmingly as possible, he hit the call button on his phone and held it up to his ear, tentatively.

The ring tone was mocking him. Each time it rang made him feel more nervous. There was still time to hang up, and apologize later. He felt even stupider, stupider than even she would call him, more anxious than a high school boy making his first ever call to ask a girl on a date. Maybe she wouldn't answer, which would be just as lenient as him hanging up. The third ring went by, the fourth, and he was beginning to lose hope and sigh in relief.

Then the line crackled. "...Hello?"

He opened his mouth to say the most audacious and warm thing that came to his mind, but stopped when he heard the groggy pause in her voice, the slightly more ragged breathing than normal. He suddenly realized what time it was. "Did I wake you up?"

There was a pause from the other end of the line, and then Arya called him out flat. "Yes."

_Shit_. He closed his eyes, sighing to himself at his own stupidity. _Trust me to be the only one not to consider that right now_. "Sorry. I shouldn't have called you. Go back to sleep."

"No, wait." The pleading note in her tone made him freeze and hold his breath. "Stay."

Gendry had to remember to actually draw air into his lungs, or else he would die. The smallness of her voice, fresh from sleep, made his own voice tiny, as well. "Okay."

For a moment, her soft breath was the only sound on the line, drawing to mind a picture of her sitting up in her bed in the near-darkness, blearily wincing at the phone and tugging at the large t-shirt she might have been wearing. Gods, he wanted to be there with her... holding her, drawing her back to sleep...

"You threw well," she murmured over the line, after a while. "Hung the one breaking ball to Clegane and got lucky, but otherwise really good. Dad was impressed."

Ned Stark was impressed. Gendry didn't care. Was _Arya _impressed with him? "Sorry I didn't respond to you sooner. I had a press conference after the game."

"You did?"

"Yeah, my first ever."

"Your first career save ever," she commented, and paused only long enough to yawn. "And Luwin sent you up to hit when he had almost a full bullpen waiting. He _wanted _you in that position, Gendry, because he knew you could execute, and you did. You might get put in for some other save opportunities coming up soon. We don't really have a closer at this point. It could be you."

"I'll throw where I throw." He shrugged, even though she could see it, and then fought against himself for several soft moments before gritting his teeth and offering an inquisitive, "How are you?"

Once more, she didn't respond immediately. He cursed, thinking he'd overstepped himself. But then, nearly amused, by the sound of it, she said, "I'm fine. Winterfell's a little boring without you... and Robb and the team around. I went for a bike ride with Rickon today. Just normal stuff."

"Normal family stuff." He wondered what it would be like, to do things in a family like that. He would have not minded spending a lazy day riding a bike with Arya. Not in the slightest. They were discussing personal aspects of their lives as if they had been friends for years. Yet it was after midnight, she was exhausted but willing to talk to him rather than sleep, and he would have stayed up all night just to hear her voice. "Cayn and Desmond acted almost friendly to me today."

"I told you they would."

He frowned. "No, you didn't. You yelled at me."

"Huh," she replied. "I guess I did. But you deserved it. You always deserve it, especially when you're being stupid. You do that a lot."

Whether it was endearing or not, it made him crack a grin to hear her say it. "Thanks a lot."

"Well, it's true," she whined. "Your head's going to inflate every road trip if I'm not there to slap sense into you every now and again. I should just attach a remote shock collar so I can zap you whenever I think you need it."

"I'm not a dog."

"No, you're not," she agreed. "You're a bull. A stupid, stubborn bull. And I'm a wolf."

"You're a wolf," he repeated. "A startling, dazzling wolf."

As soon as he said it, he thought he might have overstepped his boundaries once again. Arya said nothing, and he was beginning to curse himself anew when a soft laugh came through. It was not an uncomfortable or strained sound, in the least; it was sheepish and astonished.

"Stupid bull," she reiterated, and it was in such a way that he couldn't help but grin through the phone at her.

She yawned again, and Gendry realized that it was getting too late for even him to be up. They had another game tomorrow, a one o'clock start time day game to wrap up the series with the Lions, and he had to get _some _sleep before then. Besides, for her insistence that he stay on the line with her, she sounded about ready to collapse. "Well, I should, uh, let you go."

Her breath came through the phone slowly, pensively. "I suppose."

"Tomorrow, do you want me to—" He stopped, unsure of what he was about to finish with. "Text you"? "Call you"?

"Yes," Arya replied through the line, and he practically melted where he was sitting, despite the frostiness of the vending machine, the iciness of the floor tile beneath him. "I do."

"Okay," he said meekly. "I will." He didn't want to let her go, after all. He wanted to cling to her for all of his life and never, ever let go again. It was only with extreme effort and forcefulness that he was able to say, "Good night, Arya."

"Good night, Gendry."

He pressed the phone into his ear, waiting to hear the soft click and silence that signified the end of the call as she disconnected. Her soft breathing did not change, and several moments passed of him just listening to her, wishing he could feel the air coming through the phone on his neck. At length, he began to wonder if she had simply fallen asleep before ending the call, and he grinned.

"You know," he whispered, "hanging up works better if you actually press the 'End' button."

Her reply was a moment in coming. "I don't want to hang up. You hang up."

"You hang up first."

"No, you hang up first."

Gendry sighed, groaning into the phone, and Arya giggled. Giggled. _**Arya**_. He could have burst apart in joy at that very second, hearing the most girlishly gorgeous sound escape her lips, in the silliest argument that could possibly arise. "We are _not _doing this," he growled at her through the phone, hearing her giggle again. Her breath receded back to a soft flutter, and he was suddenly aware of how intimate he felt in that moment. All of the light nature of the previous moment was gone; the silence felt as though it would break at a murmur. When his head had cleared, his voice was honestly clueless and startled. "...What are we doing?"

"I don't know," she answered after another moment, the same surprise on her own voice, the barest hints of the giggle still there.

He didn't know, either. They weren't the same pair of friends they thought they were; something was different, something was there, something was changed. Gendry couldn't have said what it was, but it terrified him and made him want to die of happiness—_he_, the orphan who hadn't known his happiness his entire life—at the very same time.

It took a distinct amount of determination to clear his voice. "Good night, Arya."

"Night..." His name was only a soft echo on her lips that he may have imagined over the phone, but it made him shiver. Before he could say anything else that would shock him more in the morning, he dragged the phone away from his ear and pressed 'End'.

Against the vending machine, he pondered the call he had just had long after he had hung up, regardless of the early game he had the next day or the exhaustion that finally caught up with him, finally seeped into his muscles. His body felt light and heavy, energetic and drained, frightened and fearless, conflicts after conflicts after conflicts after conflicts.

Even after hours of thought, he still couldn't answer the question he had posed her.

* * *

**A fun note: the Mountain's foul ball sequence and Gendry turning to find Robb right there for a mound discussion is almost an exact description of an experience I had with my catcher when pitching in a high school playoff game.**


	12. Chapter 11

**11**

When Arya began to count down the days until the Direwolves' return to Winterfell, in complete disregard to the valuable baseball games they were playing in that time, she knew that she had it bad.

The Direwolves led by three runs in the following day game when the bottom of the ninth inning rolled around, and just as she had predicted, Gendry was called upon from the bullpen in another save situation. Was it just her imagination, or did he look rather tired on the television screen? Whether he was or not, he struck out two more hitters on the way to his second save of the season. Ned Stark spoke over the phone with Luwin after the game, and over dinner that evening he gave in to Arya's relentless demands to know for sure and told her that, until further notice, Gendry was to be considered the Direwolves' closer. Arya called him that same night to gush over the news to him, girly as that made her, but remembered that he was in midflight to Horn Hill for a four-game series with the Hunters only after the ring tones ran out. As she left him a voicemail to replace her call, she dismally realized that the series meant he was four games away from Winterfell, and four more days away from her.

She couldn't help it. Arya Stark was not one to foolishly meander absently around, distracted and jittery, but she had never been more impatient—and she _was_ an impatient person—than she was waiting four days for Gendry's return. She missed him; she had never before missed anyone who wasn't her parents or brothers. And never before could she remember wanting baseball games to simply begin and end so that he would come back faster.

The Direwolves won the first game of the series by 5, and Gendry didn't throw. In the second, they won by 1; Gendry surrendered his first career big league run, and seemed disgruntled with himself afterwards, even though he still converted the save, his third. The team lost the third game by 2, shattering their short four-game win streak, but rebounded quickly to win the fourth by 6. Gendry did throw the ninth inning in that game, but the situation was not a save. By the end of the game, though, Arya didn't care. The team had a travel day they would use to return to Winterfell, and all she had had from Gendry from Horn Hill were text messages. She wanted to speak with him, again. Wanted to see him in person even more.

The itch became so irritant that on the off day where the team was traveling she was scrambling around Stark Manor, too frantic to go out and too jumpy to stay still. It was getting ridiculous and she completely acknowledged that; it equal parts annoyed and saddened her that Arya Stark had fallen to such a level, but at the same time she was trying with all her might to find things to occupy her attention until their return. The worst was that she didn't even have a baseball game to occupy her attention.

A portion of the day was spent concocting ways to make him spend time her, which was selfish and pretentious and completely like her. If they were alone, it would be even better, but Gendry was a very busy person now. Suddenly, the eight hundred thousand dollars he had signed off for at the beginning of the year seemed like a grossly underpaid sum to the caliber player he had morphed into overnight.

_That _sparked a sudden worry in her: if he continued on this path... where would he go? The panic of the day quickly collapsed around her, and she realized that he only had a one-year contract, and that she wasn't sure he liked the North, and that many teams could offer him more money than the Direwolves, and that he had absolutely no reason to stay there. And that she was being forward and more stupid than Gendry could ever be. Besides, from the way he spoke about King's Landing to her, he made it seem like he never wanted to go back.

Thinking about King's Landing made her think about Sansa, the intervention she'd promised to make. For the week since her father had brought up the point, she had given a great deal of thought to how to go about it, and found herself just as far away from a solution as she had been when she'd begun. Blunt force had always been Arya's trademark tactic, but it was also the field that Sansa responded most poorly to. Arya had never been able to understand many things about her sister, but one of the most infuriating was the irrational attachments she made to men. At least, she had never been able to understand it until now. Until Gendry.

Damn. She had it _bad_.

Her sister was a good distraction, though, and despite the fact that Arya had been hoping to at least try her intervention in person, she herself was in desperate need of something to occupy her attention, and Sansa was ripe for the picking; nothing blocked impatience better than bitter, smoldering thoughts, and the two sisters' reactions were usually packed with those.

So, after pooling together all of the information that she had about Joffrey, her hatred for Joffrey, and the world's general contempt for Joffrey, Arya pulled out her cell phone, resisted the temptation to reread all of the text messages she had exchanged with Gendry, and dialed her sister's number.

It took a few moments of agonized pacing before Sansa's voice broke the droning dial tone. "Hello?"

"Hey, Sansa," Arya greeted.

"Hi, Arya," her sister responded, not quite eagerly but sociable. There was a scuffling sound in the background, like fabric scraping fabric. "What's up?"

Arya took a deep breath. "I don't want you to interrupt me. I have to get this out."

Sansa hesitated, then gave an uneasy chuckle. "What are you talking about?"

"It's..." Arya bit her lip, sighing. It took a very heavy load of envisioning Joffrey's face to empower her to keep speaking. "It's your lummox fiancé, Sansa. I... We've all decided that it's time we step into this and make you see reason."

The line was silent for a long moment, and then abruptly Sansa's voice was small and meek. "How did you find out?"

Arya felt her brows crease. Before she'd even had a chance to even decide what Sansa had meant, she felt complete fury rising in her chest. "Find. Out. _What_?"

"Nothing." Sansa didn't miss a beat in recovering. "Who's 'we'?"

"What did that asshole do, Sansa? What did he do to you? If he touched you again, I swear to all of the gods, old and new, that I'll bash his brains in. What did he do?"

"He didn't do anything, Arya... seriously."

"You hear this sound?" Arya paused. "That sound is me _not buying it_, Sansa! If you don't tell me what it is this very instant I will completely throw what Mom and Dad want to the wind, march down to King's Landing and drag you back to Winterfell after I kill Joffrey!"

There was no reply for a long moment from the phone. The woman who finally responded sounded nothing like the Sansa Arya knew. She sounded five years older, ten years more convicted, and thirty more patient. "Arya. Please. I promise you that Joffrey has done nothing. I promise you that. Now believe me. After what you said in King's Landing, I wouldn't lie to you about it again. But I surely _hope _you kept your own promise you made that night..."

"I did," Arya snapped quickly. She had. No one but her knew that Joffrey had hit Sansa, perhaps in the world, unless her sister had told someone else. Starks kept their oaths; honor was stronger than blood in the North, and Ned Stark had always said that the only thing worse than striking out was trying to convince yourself that the pitcher had not beaten you; words Arya had taken to heart at a very young age.

"Good," Sansa breathed. "Now, please. I'm telling you the truth, so just drop it."

Arya grunted into the phone, but said nothing more. Sansa appreciated honesty and truth just as much as she herself did, she knew, even if she held it in a different confidence at some points. As much as she _wanted _to believe that Sansa was lying, that she was wrong, that Joffrey deserved to _die, _Sansa would not lie to her. Nevertheless, it took several moments stewing, half-wishing Gendry was around so she could have a half-decent and unbreakable thing around to punch, to truly accept Sansa's statement as truth.

By the time she had, Sansa was already repeating, "Who's 'we'? What's going on?"

"Mom, Bran, Dad, and I," Arya answered. "I'm sure Rickon and Robb would be in on it, too, if Robb had a minute to spare for the outside world and Rickon was old enough to properly intimidate you."

"Arya, seriously, what does this have to do with Joff?" Sansa's voice was tentative, but not on-edge as it usually was when addressing her fiancé around her sister.

Arya cleared her throat and tried to recall all of the previously prepared phrases regarding the intervention she should have been making in person. Curse her memory, none of them jumped to the forefront of her mind. Habitual bluntness spurred her words. "Dad, Mom, and Bran all agree that you are not happy with Joffrey. He mistreats you... _I _know that he's hit you... and they don't like to see you upset. You fight with him all the time. _Everyone _sees _that_. This is bad for you, Sansa. It's been bad for you for a long time. It doesn't even seem like he _cares _about you. It has to end. You _cannot _marry him."

Sansa took a deep breath. "I understand how—"

"No," Arya growled, "don't begin a reply with that. That's a reply that's going to deny everything I've just said, and you're going to do it again, saying nobody knows him like you do. But Dad put it best, you're in a compromised situation and we're going to get you out of this before it seriously takes its toll on you."

"Arya, stop. Just listen for a moment." After a pause to ensure Arya's reluctant compliance, Sansa continued, "I have decided, on my own, that whatever Joffrey and I have is not what it used to be and that something has to change. I'm not sure if it can. But since he's never been that set on making a date of our wedding, I've stopped trying to focus on it, myself."

"The wedding's off?" Arya jumped forward excitedly. She froze. "That was way too easy. What is up?"

Sansa sighed. "No, the wedding's not off. But I'm not eager to move with it right now." She hesitated for a moment. Another sound of rustling came through the phone, as though she were standing and adopting a similar pacing stance to Arya's own. "Not eager, at all."

Arya wasn't sure how to take that, but she shook her head at her sister even though Sansa could not see it. "That makes it sound like you're trying to work on it. That's the exact opposite of what we want."

"Well, it's complicated, Arya," Sansa snapped, not quite bitterly. But almost.

"Oh, come on..." Arya groaned. "That's what every weak person in a relationship says because they think they don't want to get out of it."

"It _is _complicated. It's lost like one date and deciding you've had enough of each other. This is like throwing away years of my life for nothing, and it's hard to reconcile that even if I know it's the right thing to do."

"Well, that's why I wanted you to do it _years ago_..."

"It's not only that, anyway," Sansa sniffed. "The Lannisters have teeth and claws, and Joffrey doesn't like to let go of anything that he's had. The whole family might make my life hell if I even hint at backing out before the time is right. I have to be careful, and that involves you doing nothing and me watching everything I do without having to worry about what my family's plotting behind my back."

Arya grumbled under her breath to herself, and then remembered a fitful day of summer after which Bran never walked again. "The Lannisters have done enough damage to us, Sansa. If you need us for back up, get on a plane to Winterfell. Dad will protect you until Joffrey and the Lannisters pull their claws back in."

"No," Sansa said almost immediately. Her pacing seemed to have stopped. "No, I won't leave King's Landing. Not yet."

"Why _not_?"

A pause gripped the phone line. "Just don't try, Arya. I appreciate it, really, but I need to fight my own battle here. I realize that you were right a long time ago and perhaps I should have listened, but over the last few months I've finally started to see something of what you've been trying to tell me all this time. I'm ready to take my own action."

Something was up. This was not the sister Arya knew. The old Sansa would cower and placate rather than stand up and face the fire; the new Sansa sounded like she had burst out of that fire and suddenly realized what a pitiful conviction she had, and overnight brought forth all of the Stark ice that had previously escaped her. It was a relief to Arya that it had finally happened, but the circumstances were rather suspicious. The last time she had seen Sansa in person, her sister hadn't exactly been fervent to hop out of her relationship. Now Sansa was playing a game of hearts and power in order to leave it. Whatever event that had occurred to so suddenly change her mind, Arya had completely missed it, and was startled at the quickness of it.

"What happened so quickly to change your mind?" Arya asked.

Again, Sansa hesitated. Seconds ticked away. "Perhaps I'll tell you when I see you next. Maybe."

Arya groaned. "_Sansa..._"

"You'd probably tell me I was being dumb, anyway," Sansa replied, clearly diverting the conversation.

"Only if you were actually being it..."

"Well, when it comes to Stark girls and relationships," Sansa commented, unprovoked, "it seems one always makes the dumb choices while the other doesn't make any choices at all." Her voice cut off abruptly, as though she'd realized she might have said something she would later regret, but Arya barely noticed.

With only a few words her mind had rotated completely back around to Gendry, and impatience burst through her veins like a timed explosion. The words slipped between her lips softly, but she consciously made no attempt to stop them. "I was just waiting for the right one."

The brief intake of breath from the phone told Arya that the phrasing of her statement had not been lost on her sister. As seconds passed, regret stirred in her that she had not held the semi-confession back, but Sansa's voice was almost jubilant as she finally faintly replied, "Arya! Are you with someone?"

"No," Arya said, and the word seemed to solidify the fact. She _wasn't _with Gendry. More so to the point, she _wanted _to be with Gendry. But she wasn't. For the first time, it occurred to her that this was a problem, and she frowned at herself.

Sansa hummed in suspicion. "That's not the way it sounded to me."

"I spoke too hastily," Arya replied. "We're not together."

"But there's someone?" She could almost hear her sister's grin. "Who is he, who is he? Oh, this is so exciting!" Arya was spared having to demand why it was so exciting, because Sansa then launched an immediate, minute-long tirade on how there was never someone worthwhile in Arya's life to gossip over, and how the first sisterly session was ungodly invigorating.

"You done yet?" Arya snapped when Sansa paused for breath.

"For real!" Sansa squealed back. Perhaps not quite a squeal, but definitely in that vicinity. "Who is he? What's he look like? _Details_!"

Arya sighed, half at her sister and half at the mental images running through her head. It started off mostly directed at Sansa, but by the end the images were so utterly framed by shameless giddiness that the sigh became an exasperated one completely for herself. "He's tall. And dark. And really, really strong. Really dark hair, and eyes... they're blue, but, I mean, they're _really _blue..."

Sansa giggled. Arya decided that for once she didn't mind feeling so girly, though she felt as though she should set a limit on the number of really's used per description. "Is he handsome?"

She actually spent a moment considering it. Most of the time, his body was lean and muscular enough for her taste to captivate her attention, but once she started considering the face beyond his eyes she found she did not mind it all. Perhaps not one to turn very many heads, but his jaw line was certainly prominent in a way that made her lips want to attack it through mentally picturing it alone. The twist of his eyebrows. The thin, grim earnestness of his mouth... She found that she had no qualms about his appearance whatsoever.

"Handsome enough for me," she answered, and her sister blanched.

"That means next to nothing or absolutely hideous, depending on who you ask."

"Well, nobody asked you," Arya retorted playfully. It was very strange, Sansa and her talking about _boys_. It was almost like they were a normal family. "He's just so..." She froze, inches from having said "Gendry" before realizing that such a description wouldn't help Sansa understand him at all. "He acts stupid, but when you give him time to explain himself it actually seems like he's really smart. He's the most stubborn, bull-headed person I've ever met. Even more than me, maybe."

Sansa snorted through the phone. "Sounds like you two were made for each other. Have you let him know you're interested?"

Arya thought back, remembering the silent understanding that they'd had to avoid Robb after his major league debut, the late night phone call they'd shared with silent insinuations drifting across the phone lines, the text messages they'd exchanged giddily in-between. Or, at least, that's the way the events had seemed to her. "Not in so many words."

"Do you think he's interested in you?"

What the hell kind of question was that? He was _Gendry_, and she'd be damned if she ever knew what he was thinking. "I don't know," Arya replied meekly. "We're friends. Really good friends."

Something in her voice must have tripped her up inexplicably, because Sansa quickly asked, "He's not forty or something, is he?"

"No! He's twenty-four, or close enough to that so it doesn't matter either way."

"Five years difference." A moment of thought paused her words, and then Sansa made a sound that could have been a sigh or grunt. "That's not so bad. I guess. As long as he doesn't treat you like you're six years old."

"He doesn't, believe me." She paused, blinking. _How did the conversation become about me and Gendry? _That was completely _not _where this was supposed to go. This was supposed to be doing the exact opposite, distracting her from the gaping lack of Gendry that was in her life at that very moment. "All right. Enough tangentialness. What are you going to do about—"

"I told you, Arya," Sansa quickly cut her off, "I'll deal with it. And I'll even let you know when I do, okay?"

Arya frowned. "That's not good enough. Dad and Mom are really concerned."

"It's all they're getting, all right? I really appreciate that you care, that they care, but I'm going through a stretch here where my eyes are opening and I need this space to figure out what I'm going to do, okay?"

She was by no means accustomed or willing to give in, but in some respects the Stark sisters were the same; when Sansa dug her heels in, Arya was hard pressed to pry them back out, be it with her fingers or a crowbar. Not even a baseball bat would do the trick. Arya slumped grumpily and flopped down onto her bed, sighing contemptibly. "Fine. But if you don't do something soon I'm coming down there and taking matters into my own hands."

"Fair enough," Sansa acquiesced in a way that made Arya think she considered it anything but fair enough. "Stay on your toes with your man. Best snatch him up before someone else does. Or he gets traded."

Sansa hung up as Arya sat bolt upright, and was gone before the younger had an opportunity to demand how she knew he was a baseball player. As Arya ran the statement back through her head, the thought of Gendry being sent to another team through any means unsettled her stomach.

She check the time. T minus three hours to the plane landing, much less whenever she could connive a way to see him. This was a lot harder than she had thought it would be.

At dinner that night she told her father how the intervention had gone. Perhaps the "attempt" at an intervention would be a more apt description, but Ned Stark took it stoically, an eyebrow raise as he listened to his youngest daughter describe Sansa's curious insistences that she be left to her own devices in sorting out her predicament. Once more not mentioning Joffrey's physical infringement, of course.

Her mother displayed much more emotion, her face twisted in anguish as she surveyed her husband. "Ned, I don't know if that's good enough. Do you really feel comfortable with this?"

"Have a little faith," her father replied softly, his eyes on his wife and his face never changing. "We raised our daughters with strength and they display it well. I have confidence they can both make the right decisions." He did not know what he seemed to be inferring in Arya's case—he couldn't have; there was no possibly way—but Arya still found very interesting things in the dining room to look at in the ensuing moments. "Sansa is capable of controlling her own life, Cat. We should let her."

"Joffrey, he..." Catelyn Stark grimaced, the food around the table forgotten as she seemed to struggle with what to say. Bran and Rickon had long since stopped eating, watching the exchange silently. Catelyn seemed to glance over at her sons—one obviously more than the other—before she continued, "I don't have to say how much I distrust Lannisters. Joffrey was never Robert, Ned, and I know that you liked feeling close, but now he's gone and it's our daughter we need to worry about."

Ned Stark's face had clouded over. Ice flashed behind his eyes. "I do not feel close to Robert because of his son and our daughter, nor have I ever, nor did I ever want to. I _put up _with Joffrey because he seemed to make Sansa happy, whether it still be or not be. Our daughter has the final say in her own life and that is the final thing I will say about it."

He finished with a curt tone. Both of Arya's parents sat on opposite ends of the table with their hands folded intentionally tightly in their laps, Ned seeming to dare his wife into arguing further. For whatever reason, Catelyn glared the piercing stare usually reserved for her children at her husband for several moments before looking away with something quite obviously morose and bitter, but Ned merely nodded and grunted in satisfaction before glancing at Arya. "While we're talking about Lannisters, the courts reached a decision in relation to the Monarchs."

Arya sat up straight in her chair. "So soon?"

Her father eyed her skeptically. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Tywin Lannister..." He cut off voluntarily, but the unspoken statement loomed over the table, leaving little doubt in any Stark, except perhaps Rickon, what he had been about to imply. "In any case, they decided in short order that the will was mute for some concocted piece of lunacy, and passed it on in good order to Robert's widow. You can bet, with Cersei, that means that the Monarchs are as good as Tywin's."

"That can't be!" Arya blurted, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. "That means that he's in control of both the Lions and the Monarchs. The league can't allow that!"

"He's not _officially_ the owner of both," her father responded uneasily. "I'm not the only one who'll notice, I'm sure, there will be complaints going into the league office from all over, but since the two teams aren't in the same division or league, it probably wouldn't stir up any difficulty even if they protested. It's all a bureaucratic wealth fest in the office, anyway, and Tywin Lannister's one of the best players. There's nothing I can do anymore about it, it's out of my hands."

"There must be some way that he can be stopped."

Ned Stark merely shook his head. "We can always hope he just lets the team take its course on its own. The gods know that the Monarchs regaining their success under Robert was of none of his doing anyway. It was all the back office people. Maybe Tywin will just let them keep doing his thing, because a lot of the Baratheon people were in the Lannister pocket anyway, then, as well, but it's just as likely that there may be trouble on the horizon."

"What's so bad about it?" Rickon wondered suddenly. Arya had quite forgotten that he and Bran, and Catelyn, really, were there. "I mean, it's still baseball. They still have to play the game."

"That's true," his father said, nodding, "but baseball is game of averages and it's also a business, the same as any other profession. If you have one man scheming his way behind two teams it gives him a lot of influence and leverage over other teams, which can materialize itself in the form of acquiring the better, more expensive players or conniving ways to skirt rules without penalty. It can change the way the league exists. The problem is, there's not much the league can do to stop it until Tywin Lannister makes a mistake. Which is very rare."

He finished with a grim note, and the sullenness remained over the table thereafter. Arya considered holding her tongue, but then asked her father, "What are you going to do?"

"Is there anything I can do?" Ned Stark answered without looking at her. She had no answer.

The question plagued her dimly for the rest of the evening, but was overshadowed by larger mental demands as she tossed and turned in the night, too absurdly excited to get much sleep. When she did manage to drift away, she dreamed of Sansa pelting Joffrey with baseballs while a large, black dog stalked around them, growling, or else of a bull with blue eyes that approached her tranquilly and stood before her protectively. The combination didn't make for the most restful of sleep, but by the time she awoke an hour before the sun rose and bounced out of bed to go for a jog in the dark she was far too jumpy to care.

Time did not pass quick enough. An extra long jog and extra long shower still only put her to about the time the family began their normal summer morning routine, where Catelyn made breakfast for Rickon and Ned, Bran usually still being fast asleep. Arya usually did not attend, either, and ignored the pointed, surprised glances she received from her parents when she sidled up to the breakfast table; it only made her feel stranger for being there, which made her cringe inwardly at the silly reason for her excited state.

Luckily, the Direwolves played an early afternoon game that day, a strange but nevertheless welcome setting for the first game of their series, and so Arya only had to wait until shortly before noon before setting off to the stadium with no small bout of trepidation. She asked her father if he would go with her, fully intending to lose him once they got to the stadium, but Ned Stark said he had a few matters to deal with in his study and that he would be along closer to game time, an arrangement which worked for Arya in every way.

The grounds crew was just finishing setting up the equipment for batting practice when she arrived through the private gate, immediately crossing the concourse down to the field level and strutting down the aisle until she could sit just behind the dugout. Gendry wouldn't be able to slip by into the outfield without her catching him, and conversing with him, and arranging to see him after the game in some way or another.

No players were about the field yet, but it was just over three hours until game time and it was only a matter of time. Arya wriggled in her seat and contemplated what she would say to Gendry when she saw him, just as the first position players were climbing out of the clubhouse and making their way onto the field. Finding herself once again disgusted with her attitude, she chastised herself to be normal, yet couldn't help but trouble her mind anxiously on how Gendry expected her to act. _No, that's stupid. You can't be how he expects you to be, or you'll drive yourself crazy. You have to be yourself._

But what if herself wasn't good enough? Life wasn't supposed to be this unfair.

So caught up was she in trying to figure out what to say and what to do and how to be who she was and who Gendry wanted at the same time that she didn't realized he had emerged from the dugout until she looked up and met his eyes. He stood on the top step, in a black warm-up that bore the snarling face of the Direwolves, with his baseball pants and cleats. Other players specialized in wristbands and armbands and all other manner of accessories, but Gendry's only equipment was the glove he held loosely in his right hand. There was no telling how long he had been standing there, but the glint of amusement behind his gaze implied it had been a long time. His lips were turned upwards in a sultry smirk that twisted her insides in knots and set her heart racing.

She stood bolt upright, shooting up out of the seat so foolishly that she cursed herself silently. "Hi."

"Hi, yourself," he replied. "I didn't expect to see you before the game. I figured you'd be down for after."

"I plan to." She left her seat and stepped over the railing. Gendry offered her a hand of help which she characteristically swatted out of her way. Belatedly, she worried if that would annoy him, but Gendry's smirk seemed to turn into a grin that he tried to hide by turning away. His face may have been coloring, but it also might have been the heat of the day.

When he turned back to her, his eyes became appraising, and whilst losing herself in their sapphire depths she felt like she should say something else. "I missed you" seemed way too revealing of her mindset and "How about later?" would just not do. Gendry got to words before she could, which she could have kissed him for. "I wanted to call you again, but I never got the chance."

Her jaw threatened to drop open in disbelief. She snapped it up before it had the opportunity. "You don't have to be shy. Whenever you want. Whatever you want to talk about. I know plenty of things to talk about where baseball is concerned."

He nodded. She felt naked under his eyes. "How is your life? Managing to keep busy?"

"Yeah. My dad's rolled up into some business from King's Landing and I've been following that. I suppose you know that, though?" He nodded, still smiling. "Well, I'm still just enjoying the time off from school. I've talked to Jon a couple times, which is nice. What about you? Baseball occupying enough of your attention?"

"Baseball," he nodded. "And you."

She blinked. So did he. They both seemed to realize what he had said at the same time, and both of them seemed to blush. Her mind was too fried to try and think about what him saying that meant. She couldn't quite tell whether her heart was thumping two hundred beats per minute or had completely stopped. She wanted nothing more than to look away, to hide from him what he was doing to her, but a combination of refusal to submit and an utter inability to tear her eyes away from the oceanic blue pools of his made her bite her lip and hold their eye contact. To an outside observer, they may have looked to be in a staring contest, or else locked in a magical duel to the death.

"Oh, boy. Awkward, furious, simmering arguments with my sister. Very dangerous."

Robb climbed out of the dugout in similar attire to Gendry's, clutching a bat in addition to his catcher's mitt, and grimaced sympathetically. Arya finally looked away from the tall, dark-haired man as he turned to her brother, incredibly thankful Robb had misinterpreted the circumstances of their position and expression. "Only for idiots."

"Was that supposed to be insulting?" Robb said, grinning at her. "I missed you, too, sis."

Arya grunted. Thoroughly unladylike. She gestured in Gendry's direction. "How's he doing?"

Robb exchanged a look of wry disbelief with Gendry, who shrugged, and crossed his arms as he faced her with a mockingly condescending face. "Well, Mrs. Waters, your son is just one spanking good player."

"Shut up," Arya demanded, mimicking her brother's body language and pretending like her face wasn't coloring even more. "I know how he's playing, obviously. I was asking how he was adjusting to the team and everything."

"In case you hadn't noticed," Robb said, just as Gendry opened his mouth to say something, "he's kind of past the adjustment stage, seeing as he's officially the team's closer."

"I'm standing right here," Gendry said unhappily, looking back and forth between the Stark siblings.

Arya waved him away and his face adopted his characteristically cute, stubborn, frustrated look that she couldn't get enough of. Whatever she had been about to say died on her lips, and what decided to come out a moment later was, "Maybe if Robb called a better game you would already be an all-star."

Robb snorted and shook his head. "Maybe if you weren't such a crazy little girl you would actually deal an insult."

"Should I leave?" Gendry offered cynically, taking half a step backwards. "Give you two some time to work this whole thing out?"

"No," both Starks said at the same time, although Arya's was more frantic. She hoped the emotion had been covered up by Robb's voice, and glared at him as if to punish him in the case that it had not.

Neither man seemed to have noticed. Instead, Robb nodded to her again, the two men ran through a short series of facial expressions, and then they both shrugged and laughed as if they'd just had a lengthy telepathic discussion. Arya sniffed unappreciatively. _Men_.

"I don't mean to twist your panties in a bunch, Arry," Robb said gushingly, sarcastically. He stepped forward and mussed her hair like Jon might have done, pulling her into a bear hug as he did so. Despite herself, Arya laughed as she shoved him away. Normally, she would have added a punch, but instead used her hands to comb fingers through her hair and straighten it. Gendry watched her do it and she wondered if she would not have bunched her brother three times had the dark-haired bull not been there.

"Don't you have baseballs to hit, or something?" she barked at her brother's smirk.

"No familial love," Gendry said, shaking his head at her. "That hurts."

"Love _does _hurt, stupid," she told him, giving _him _a punch in the arm. "Everybody knows that."

"Do they?" Gendry grinned, but there wasn't much force behind it. Arya remembered that he hadn't had a family before. He'd never had someone to love. Someone to care for him, or for him to care for. Perhaps he didn't know that, and not just because he was acting stupid.

"Well," she stammered, and cleared her throat while Robb fiddled distractedly with something on his shirt, his eyes distant. Her voice was quieter. "It's never too late to learn. For anybody."

It wasn't the most _zen _thing to say, but Gendry's face brightened from the weak grin to a appreciate smile, and Arya could have danced. Not that she knew how to dance. For him, though, just perhaps, if he were the one trying to guide her or willing to take the plunge with her, she just might have tried. Filing it under information he could never, under any circumstances, get his hands on, she thought to herself, _Gods, if he smiles at me like that, no matter what he asks I'm gone..._

"Gendry Waters?"

Churned from her thoughts, Arya glanced up with Robb and Gendry. All three of them turned towards the voice, and the three of them had a very similar reaction. A young woman stood a few paces away, having approached them without any of them noticing. That fact alone perplexed Arya, because she definitely felt as though there would have been a tremor in the Force accompanying the arrival of this woman.

She didn't look like she belonged on a baseball field. On her pristinely perfect and colorfully-toenailed feet she wore flip-flops, beginning a near three foot stretch of what could only be described as flawless and toned legs. Shorts that had less fabric to them than a handkerchief ended the endless expanse of perfection, only to yield way to a tight purple tank top that hugged the rambunctious and distressingly prominent curves of the woman's upper body. Her hair was as golden pale as beach sand, and cascaded in faultless tangles to mingle with her breasts, and her seamless, wide-smiling face was as beautiful as her body. A dark set of sunglasses hid her eyes, but Arya didn't need to see them to know they would be perfect.

The woman was without a doubt the most gorgeous thing Arya had ever seen, and she was staring hungrily at Gendry as if preparing to digest a meal.

Gendry cleared his throat, sounding as if he hadn't had a drink of water in weeks. "I'm him."

The woman's smile revealed perfectly white teeth. Arya conjectured that they _might _have been filed to vampire points while her mind unconsciously brought to mind a zillion methods of killing this woman. Instead, she was forced to watch helplessly as Gendry stepped forward a little too eagerly—fuck that, a _lot_ too eagerly—to shake the damned woman's hand. Beside them, Robb looked as if the gods had reached down from the heavens and slapped him across both cheeks.

"You're a most wanted man," the woman sang, in her stupid, slutty, musical voice as they shook hands. "Daenarys Targaryen. Time Magazine. Do you have a few minutes? Your story has captivated the world, and I'm writing an article for a future edition about you. I know I should have called ahead and made an appointment, but..." The damned woman bit her lip in a way that almost turned _Arya_ on. "...I don't know, I guess I wanted an excuse to unexpectedly meet baseball's newest pitching wonder."

_She has to die_, Arya decided. _"A most wanted man". What in the fuck does that mean?_

"I, uh..." Gendry grunted intelligently, and Arya wanted to slap him, too. "I have a few minutes, sure. But... I didn't... I didn't know anyone was writing about me..."

"Well, with all due respect," Daenarys Targ-arrogant said, shrugging, "you're quickly becoming legendary. Your rise to the big leagues wasn't only impressive; it was so quick that we don't even really know who you are. Three saves in the book and a near flawless pitching record, not to mention the strikeout numbers you've posted in that time... phenomenal."

Gendry blinked, still a sentence behind. "Who doesn't know who I am?"

Targaryen laughed. Arya glanced down at her shoes, wishing her legs were more than skin and bone and that she could shrivel into nothing. _Why can't my laugh sound like that? He likes my laugh, though, doesn't he? _She snorted—everyone was too busy being aroused to notice. _Not compared to hers, he wouldn't. Doesn't._

"The _world _doesn't know, Gendry," Targaryen whispered loudly, tantalizingly. "Can I call you Gendry?"

"Sure," Gendry blurted. Arya's fists curled.

"Good," Targaryen said. "Now, I was wondering if I could steal five minutes of your time to ask you some questions. Will that be all right? Captain Stark, will that be all right?"

For a moment in her dome of searing rage, Arya thought the bitch was talking to her, and she began to open her mouth to angrily inform her that it was quite not all right. Robb was quicker in the response, though, and saved her a truckload of embarrassment by cutting in with, "Five minutes."

"Very good." The reporter reached up and removed her sunglasses, revealing purple eyes that gleamed as if with fire. A lesser girl than Arya would have cried. "Shall we just go over here, then, Gendry?"

"Sure."

Arya watched as he let her lead him down the first base line a short ways, before climbing over the barrier nimbly—of course, she was probably a fucking gymnast wherever she came from—and gave a spectacular view of her posterior before she selected a seat in the first row and waited patiently for Gendry to join her. As he did so, she whipped a notebook from a pocket that must have been magic to fit in such tiny shorts.

Arya's small victory was that he left an empty seat between them, but her mind's eye conjured a picture of the bitch not being able to "hear clearly" and leaping right in his lap. She couldn't help it... she lost it.

"Who the _fuck _is that?"

For the first time since the reporter's arrival, Robb glanced at her. "Who?"

"Do _not _fuck with me, Robb."

Her brother appeared honestly confused, and she had to wait fuming seconds for him to make the infuriatingly masculine mental adjustment. "Oh! _Her_." He said the word as if she were a goddess walking the earth... which, actually, she was. "I've heard of her. Heard she was a looker, too. Never met her, though. A good reporter, from what I hear, though how a girl from such a big baseball family ended up on a news magazine staff is beyond me."

"Baseball family?" Arya repeated, before suddenly realizing she had more or less ignored the bitch's name in her blind hatred. _Targaryen_. She gasped. "You mean... that's..."

"Rhaegar Targaryen's sister, yeah," Robb finished. "Kind of looks like him, if you squint. A good deal sexier, I would have to say. What do you think?"

Arya glared at him, seriously considering seizing the baseball bat from his hands and bashing his brains in. "Do you _want _to die?"

Robb glanced at her and jumped, finally noticing her furious stare. Her expression truly must have been something to behold, because he took a full step backwards before tilting his head to the side warily and asking her, "What's up? You all right?"

"I'm going to kill her," Arya stated flatly, turning back to where the bitch was talking to Gendry. "She is going to die. If she's not a thousand miles away in three minutes I'm going to fucking kill her."

For a few moments, Robb stared emptily at her, blank as only someone of his honesty and incredulity could be. Then, slowly, a little grin began to spread across his face. "Wait... Arya... you're not... are you _jealous_?"

"Yes," she snapped, so quickly he barely finished his sentence. _No point in denying it. Might as well face up to it._

To her utter horror, the last thing she expected to happen, did. Robb threw his head back and howled in laughter, so loudly that Gendry turned his head and both he and the damned woman glanced over towards them. It only got worse; Robb pitched forward and doubled over, resting his hands on his knees as peals of amusement tore through his body.

"Shut the fuck up!" Arya demanded, kicking her brother in the shin, which seemed to have no effect.

"Arya... Stark... jealous!" her brother gasped. Alarmed, Arya darted another glance towards her bull and the stupid reporter, but thankfully they hadn't seemed to have heard. Robb managed to straighten up and wipe the tears from his eyes, a beaming smirk still splitting his face. "I _never_ thought I would see the day..."

"Keep your voice down," she demanded violently. "If they hear you, I'll use your corpse to smother the both of them."

"My god, you've really grown up!" Robb joked, reaching forward to hug her. She batted his arms away, in no mood for affection, at the same time as he seemed to reconsider his words. "Well, you're still being immature about it, but at least it's about a grown-up thing!"

"How am I being immature?"

"Well, let's see..." Robb held out his hand and began ticking off fingers. "You're standing there quivering and pouting about a boy, you're seething because you think she's 'prettier' than you and all those other girly attractive things girls are always worrying about, and you're plotting to murder her in cold blood even though she's not going to do anything with him."

"Are you blind?" she retorted. Flinging an arm out at the two engaged in a quiet discussion, she barked, "Look at her! She's all over him! Look!"

"Eh." Robb shrugged. "It's all for show, I'm sure. She's just flashing the googly eyes for him so she can get what she wants for her story. Even if she was, it wouldn't be anything serious. All those reporter girls want the same thing, a good fuck with a hot baseball player and then on to the next story."

"I'll fuck her up good," Arya snarled, cracking the knuckles in both hands. "Does that count?"

She seethed for a few unsettling moments, furiously eyeing the slavering Targaryen as the carnivorous bitch watched Gendry stumble over an answer to her questions. Beside Arya, Robb was silent for a few moments, before finally murmuring. "I have never. Ever. Seen you like this."

"She can't have him." She sounded childish and bratty, and did _not_ care in the slightest. "He's not for her."

"Arya," Robb said tensely, "he's almost five years older than you."

"So I've been reminded," she grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest. "Do you think I give a damn? Mom's almost five years younger than Dad. She married him out of high school when he was almost out of college!"

"That's different," her brother insisted, and he faced her with fists planted on his hips. His eyes kept darting back and forth between her and Gendry. "They had known each other for a long time. Our grandfathers were friends and allies long before they met for the first time. Gendry just walked in off the streets a few months ago."

"Yeah, after _I_ found him."

"My point is, you don't really know who he is yet. There are a lot of secrets he could still be hiding from us, things he doesn't want us to find out. As a ball player, it doesn't matter, because personal lives get left off the field. When it's like—" Her brother waved a hand, sort of at her, sort of in midair. "—that, though… I like him a lot, don't get me wrong, and he's nice enough and honest enough for me, but in a context where my sister's crushing on him? I'm not comfortable with that."

"Don't say 'crushing'," Arya replied, crinkling her nose in disgust. "It makes me sound like a little prissy high school bitch."

" 'Cause that's not totally how you're acting right now," he droned sardonically. She stepped forward and punched him on the arm. He grunted in pain and rubbed it, and she couldn't help but think of how Gendry never reacted when she hit him. "Exactly."

"You're one to talk!" Arya snapped. "What about you and your Jeyne, huh? Still rubbing Roslin's face in the dirt between the two of you?"

The jab had its desired effect. Robb's concerned expression dropped completely, turning dead cold in warning. "That is not what happened. You know that. Roslin and I just weren't for each other. I didn't go about ending it the right way, which I sincerely regret, but Jeyne and I are really good together in a way I never had with Roslin."

"Oh, you mean by knocking her up?"

If possible, his face got darker. "She's not pregnant, damn it. We just have a lot that we find interesting with each other, if not a lot we have in common. Just because things are different we can talk about a shit ton of things forever. I enjoy her, something I didn't see in Roslin. I'm sorry about how it happened, but now I'm with Jeyne and I'm happy, and you have no right to bring it up in this discussion."

She slumped, the combined depression of being shouldered for a prettier woman and frustration at Robb's disapproval making her mood muddied. "Then you have no right digging into my business any more than I have into yours."

"You're my little sister," he reasoned. "It's completely different."

"No, it's not!"

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Well, that should be everything, then, Mr. Waters," the bitch said. She and Gendry sidled up next to her and Robb again, and both siblings snapped to, most likely with opposite expressions; Robb struggled not to drool and Arya had to make sure she didn't punch the reporter.

"All right, good," Gendry replied. Arya hoped the change in his expression came from being a little less starstruck.

Targaryen dug around in a pocket for a moment—her notebook had been magically whisked away once more—and produced a business card. Probably forged from the hearts of Others, Arya imagined, but she offered it as though it were gold, and Gendry took it. "If there's anything further you require of me... my numbers on there." Arya began to sneer at her, and only barely managed to stop. "Only next time. Mr. Stark. Ms. Stark."

She was almost as startled at being addressed by name as she was that she managed not to kill the beautiful, short reporter. With a sauntering strut that drew more eyes than just those of the two men she was with, Daenarys Targaryen popped back through the gate she used behind home plate and made her way up the aisles of stadium seats until she had disappeared from sight back onto the concourse. Was it Arya's imagination, or did the stadium seem a little darker?

"What a bitch," she mumbled as soon as the reporter was gone. _"If there's anything further you require of me", indeed._

Gendry glanced down at the card in his hands and shrugged, while Robb glared at her. "She was nice enough," he defended. "Kept trying to dig her talons into my personal information, but pretty..." He seemed to finally take note of Arya's complete willingness to murder him, and coughed. "...polite."

Her arms crossed and she mumbled under her breath about nothing and everything unfair, in particular, but then something very surprising happened. Gendry glanced once more at the card and then reached over the dugout railing to set it randomly on a bench, where he had little chance of remembering to pick it back up. What was more, he didn't appear concerned about it, letting it slip and straightening up to immediately turn his attention back to the field. She couldn't help herself from blurting, "You're not going to keep that?"

Gendry looked at her, eyebrows creasing in adorable thought and confusion. "What?" She gestured at the card, and he shrugged, his brows creasing further without recognition. "I have no use for it."

"You don't 'require anything further'?" She could have slapped herself in the face. _Shut up. Why are you encouraging him?_

But Gendry only shook his head. "Why would I? I suppose it might be nice to have her number, but I certainly don't need it. There was an air about her that basically said she expected to be obeyed and would not be questioned. I have no desire for that. I'd want someone who would knock me around and not take 'no' for an answer when I was wrong, but not someone who would demand I go along with them. Besides, she looked too perfect at a first glance. True beauty takes a second and third and fourth glance to work." By the time he had finished talking, he was looking at Arya, and she at him, and neither one of them was blushing or looking away. Arya found herself feeling quite warm inside.

"What fantastic philosophy," Robb announced wryly, his eyes traveling back and forth between the two of them, "but it is our time. If you'll excuse us, Arya, we have to get to work."

He turned off for the field, but Gendry stayed back a moment. He cocked his head at her and offered her the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. "I'll see you after the game?"

She found herself nodding without conscious effort. "You're paying."

The smile lingered, and then he turned and jogged the few paces Robb had already stalked off, the two baseball players moving out to join their teammates in the outfield as batting practice began.

Arya was left by herself, and waited only long enough for both of them to be too far away to react to any sudden movement on her part before darting down the dugout steps and seizing the reporter's business card. She took it in her hands and ripped it cleanly in half, then quarters, then eighths, proceeding to destroy the thin cardboard to the best of her ability, until not even a single letter was legible on its ruined surface. Thoroughly considering swallowing the tiny shreds of paper, she finally settled for distributing them between a half dozen waste bins scattered throughout the dugout, before clapping her hands contentedly and watching batting practice.

One could never be too safe, after all.

* * *

Tyrion Lannister hadn't exactly led a privileged life. He was a Lannister, of course, so it would be difficult to convince anyone of that claim, but it was true, nevertheless. Mostly. His recessively displeasing gene configuration had doomed him for a life of disfiguration and mockery, insofar as the world could provide, and to the delight of his tormentors the world had not failed in the slightest. His dear sister and father were too of the most guilty tyrants, if from behind locked doors and through scheming loopholes. Money could do wonders; prostitutes, alcohol. What it couldn't do was satisfy ambition, which was something Tyrion had possessed unfulfilled for his entire life.

What he lacked in stature he made up for in wit, to the chagrin of almost everyone around him. He had never much been the famed baseball player, as his older brother had been. Aside from the literal, his entire life was thus spent largely in Jaime's shadow, whenever Tyrion cared to be in his presence. For the wonder, Jaime was perhaps the only Lannister to ever show true respect and affection for Tyrion, which he found ironic in a vast number of ways. Cersei and his father both blamed him for the untimely, tragic death of the Lady Lannister, but Jaime seemed only to take pity on his very little brother, and for that, as much as it shamed Tyrion to admit it, he was very grateful. All the same, dwarfism left him little to offer his family legacy, where his brother collected almost five thousand hits before retirement and his sister married the greatest slugger of their generation; Tyrion's only baseball aspiration was to be a general manager the likes of which the league had never seen. If raw intelligence was all it took, he would have succeeded long past.

Unfortunately for him, working against one's father—especially and totally when said father was Tywin Lannister—was a fatal practice, and so he could hardly become employed by one of the teams that might actually fancy to hire him when those teams did their best every day to beat his father's enterprise. It was a laugh, then, even to him, to ask his father for a position in the Lions' scouting department after his college graduation. Tywin had taken it in due course, and with his traditional horridness had appointed his youngest and most hideous son Head Scout of the Sothoros continent. Tyrion may actually have been satisfied, if Sothoros held a population large enough or wealthy enough to play anything but soccer.

Tyrion had never been one to sugarcoat things. Ten years into his adult life, having begged to be included in the Monarchs' staff as opposed to the Lions once Tywin gripped a hold on Robert Baratheon's team behind the curtain, as well, he was freely willing to admit that Senior Finance Officer of the Scouting Department was probably as high as he was ever going to get, in life. If he hadn't have been as damn good as he was at arranging contracts—unparalleled in the field, really—he could never have hoped to be graced by such a high position. As it was, the position of general manager was very much impossible for him to attain, he reasoned. As were the chances of his father ever voluntarily speaking to him again.

All of it made him very surprised one afternoon to have a call come down summoning him to the general managers' offices upstairs in downtown King's Landing. He couldn't remember intentionally doing something to earn the managers' ire, which was usually the route that called him up to their offices; he considered it sport, and verbally sparring with them over his "mistake" was often the most fun he ever had.

Summoned he was, though, and so, with a quirk of the eyebrow and an uncomfortable hop down from his desk chair, Tyrion waddled unsteadily from his small office and proceeded to take the elevator to the floor above, where the managers' secretary let him immediately in.

Tyrion had never liked Petyr Baelish. A short, pristine, slimy schemer of a man much after Tyrion's own heart, Baelish nevertheless played nothing for anyone's gain but his own, whatever that may be. A perennial low-level minor leaguer in his playing days, he had picked up the nickname "Littlefinger" after many years of error-packed seasons which eventually resulted in his leaving the playing field. What he lacked in baseball skill, however, he capitalized on in the office. He was a master of his art, sometimes swindling players away from rival teams before his fellow general managers knew he was even working deals, drawing individuals into contracts guaranteeing far less money and benefits than other offers they received, and affectionately patting the legal line of the Major League Baseball office as he just skirted over it, never a toe too far and never a fingernail of breadth unused. Tyrion had observed that Littlefinger's miracles turned even more magical when he was faced with an amount of competition, which he reasoned was the precise reason why Tywin Lannister had decided to keep the longtime general manager of the Monarchs on while giving half of his position to Baelish.

Varys was perhaps Baelish's opposite. Varys had spies and scouts, everywhere, less than half of which were on the book. He probably had twice as many as there were people in the world, if that were even possible. Tyrion imagined that if it were possible to have animals take notes on pitching prospects and batting averages, the large, bald, incorruptibly polite man had them. It was unprecedented for a team to have two general managers, but Varys and Baelish unconditionally and invisibly hated each other, assuring that their work, even together, was of the utmost perfection, the two of them always trying to outmatch one another. Whereas Baelish worked in tricks and intricately laid plans, Varys dealt in information, statistics, carefully-calculated projections and expertly made estimations. The two of them made an impeccable and unstoppable team, the fact aside that they wanted nothing more than to be at each others' throats, and Tyrion had always been grudgingly admiring of their work.

That did not mean he was fond of either of them, the both of them staring at him as he waltzed into the wide, open office they shared on the tenth floor of the building. From behind their desks on opposite sides of the room, they both observed him in a way that almost startled Tyrion into thinking they were actually in collusion.

"Sirs," Tyrion said as he entered, walking as best he could until he was in the perfect middle of them, giving deference to neither. "I was summoned before you most urgently. How might I be of humble service?"

Baelish stood and paced out from behind his desk. "My dear Tyrion, word has come down that your father has won his court case. The Lannisters, officially your sister, are now the owners of the Monarchs."

"Congratulations are in order," Varys agreed, standing himself and rounding the other desk.

Tyrion felt uncomfortably as though they were rounding up on him. It was a situation he had dealt with often in life, although he found himself more prepared to deal with settings such as these rather than those that involved fists and many overly large feet stamping down upon him. "I am, of course, aware, although why my father insists on having all the toys constantly, I still don't understand."

"Well, be that as it may," Littlefinger said, smiling. It didn't reach his eyes; they never did. "It is a wonderful day for the Monarchs, gaining such promising owners from such a legendary baseball family. We are very proud to be members of it."

Tyrion raised an eyebrow, watching them both standing before him. "Very kind of you to say. Is there something that I am actually supposed to do for you, here, or was I just brought up all those normal-sized stairs to be gushed over?"

Littlefinger's lips tightened ever so slightly, Tyrion was pleased to note; Varys, always the more adaptable of the two, managed to hold a straight expression. Baelish cleared his throat once before saying, "Well, now that Lord Tywin is officially in charge, it has been brought to our attention that he would like to say something to us. All of us, including you. We are expecting him any moment."

If anything could make Tyrion stand up straight, it had been said. "My father is coming _here_?"

"Not exactly," Varys answered, and before Tyrion could even sarcastically comment upon the lack of information the phone on Littlefinger's desk began to ring.

His lips tightening even more, perhaps at being rung without a directory statement from his secretary, Baelish took three steps to his desk and picked up the phone. "Hello? Yes, sir." It was actually possible to watch the blood draining from his face, the pursing of his lips, as he listened to whatever was being said. Tyrion reveled in it, struggling to keep his face neutral and inquiring until Littlefinger carefully dropped the receiver from his ear. The short man actually turned to Varys, looking ashen-faced, and silently handed him the phone.

Tyrion watched interestedly as Varys took it, the large man actually seeming uncomfortable as his feet as he lifted the phone and greeted Tywin Lannister the same as Littlefinger had. Varys' face didn't drain of color as Littlefinger's had, but his eyes—if only for a moment—lost the all-knowing, everlastingly confident glint they always had, and Tyrion could have chugged himself through an entire strip club on the euphoria from that expression. After another long listen and hesitation, Varys tugged the phone away with an effort and surprised Tyrion by handing him the phone. "It's for you."

Tyrion eyed it curiously for a moment and then both of the general managers before carefully taking the phone and saying a silent prayer that it all wasn't a trap to kill him in some way. "My dear father, how are you?"

"Don't get smart with me," Tywin snapped.

Tyrion grimaced, but it was only half-real. "Ah, your love touches me."

"Shut up, before I end you," his father growled, and Tyrion fought hard not to grimace or roll his eyes. "Listen to me closely. I have some things that I need you to do, and right now."

Glancing up at Littlefinger and Varys, Tyrion asked, "Does it have anything to do with the two deposed gentlemen that stand before me as we speak?"

"Bloody fools!" Tywin cursed, sounding much angrier than he was letting himself show. "They have more scouts in a city than teams do in a fucking country, and they can't find a fireballer in the middle of their own damn city!"

"Forgive me, Father, but I believe we've started somewhere in the middle. Perhaps if we could waddle back to the beginning for me..."

Tywin paused, and Tyrion thought that perhaps he had overstepped what was appropriate. Finally, though, his father continued, "The Starks and their new closer. A nobody named Waters who can throw almost a hundred miles per hour. Eddard Stark pulled him right out of the middle of King's Landing on a contract that was not meant for a rookie. Do you know him?"

Tyrion stirred. "Of him. His name's been in the papers, but I haven't seen very many games from Winterfell lately."

"He has everything," Tywin told his son, although Tyrion wondered whether or not he was just speaking to himself, at that point. "His velocity, his off-speed pitch, his location, his accuracy, his intelligence. And he came from _our _city. From our bloody city! If Baratheon hadn't made such a mess of his own estate, he could be on _our _team! My team!"

"Forgive me, Father," Tyrion droned dangerously, "but if I am only here to hear you vent, it seems to me like I am not doing a very good job of it. Is there some specific reason you're telling me this."

"It doesn't smell right," Tywin said, and just like that, the Lord of Lannister sounded perfectly, fatally calm, as he normally did in the most perilous of situations. "How Stark found him when we could not does not add up, and the two fuckups before you do not make errors."

"I still do not understand what you want me to do."

"Don't play innocent, Tyrion. I know you have impressive skills and dangerously intelligent abilities. I want you to find out where Waters came from, and what Stark did to get him to Winterfell without anyone realizing it. Something dirty is going on, and I intend for you to find it. I do not intend for them to take a weapon from me and get away with it."

Tyrion listened, barely able to believe what his father was telling him. It was as close to a "I need you, son," as he had ever received in his life, and it was, frankly, a shock. "What do you expect me to find?"

"I don't know," Tywin admitted. "A false birth certificate. A forged name. Something isn't right. When you look at his picture, you see... _I _see..." His father paused, and then told Tyrion, who raised an eyebrow at the shocking possibility. "It is possible, and I would kill the fat bastard if he were still alive... but I need you to find out."

"And what if..." Tyrion hesitated. "What if I should find that there _is _nothing amiss? What then?"

Tywin did not miss a beat. "Then ruin him. Slander him. Destroy him. The Starks _will not get away with it_. If you do that, then I will give you the job of the numbskulls who fucked up right in front of you."

Tyrion felt his eyes widen, felt himself turn his gaze upwards to the two men who were nearly bouncing on their toes, watching him. "After all this time, you will finally give me that?"

Tywin ignored the question. "You have the full resources of the Monarchs at your disposal. I have already ordered the both of them to give you their full cooperation and availability. I want to know everything about this Waters bastard, and I want him to go down."

"Understood," Tyrion said quietly.

"And Tyrion?"

"Father."

"Do not fail me." The line clicked dead.

Tyrion stared at the phone for almost a full minute after Tywin hung up, the two men waiting silently before him. Perhaps a better person than he would feel monumentally guilty, or uncomfortable, willingly taking on the task of ruining a young's man life for the sake of his own ambitions. Perhaps anyone other than Tyrion wouldn't do it; but he had spent his entire life being shoved down, having his own life ruined, having his own dreams shattered. Whoever Gendry Waters was—and Tyrion _would_ find out—however much he deserved where he was, Tyrion had the opportunity to claim back everything that had ever been taken from him. He couldn't afford to waste it.

He finally looked up at Varys and Littlefinger, and the horrified, impatiently frantic looks on both of their normally pristine faces made every hardship he had ever endured worth it. "We have work to do."


	13. Chapter 12

**12**

There was no definite way to pinpoint the turning point of the Winterfell Direwolves' season, but after Gendry's promotion to the big leagues it seemed that every series was a win. By the middle of June, a few weeks after his appointment as the closer, their record had skyrocketed seven games back to a five-hundred record, only six games behind the division-leading Mermen of White Harbor, and by the first day of July, in which time Gendry had converted no fewer than twelve saves in twelve opportunities with an ERA just under one, they were tied with the Lizards for the division after coming off a four-game sweep of the Mermen.

It wasn't as though he were the only one having success, but he was certainly the catalyst for the reaction. Robb sprouted a fifteen-game hitting streak in the midst of the turnaround, and Mikken smacked a pair of home runs two days in a row one weekend. Jory threw two complete games in June that may otherwise have been saves for Gendry, and even Cayn seemed to somehow be prospering; even if he and Gendry's relationship didn't advance past the stage of teammates, Cayn took over the role of setup man and surrendered only three runs in the whole month.

By the second week of July, with the Direwolves nursing a tender three-game lead in the Division and sitting an unlikely nine games over five-hundred, the baseball world had begun to talk about Gendry Waters and the Direwolves. Targaryen's article still had not run, almost a month and a half after the interview, but plenty of other people had taken notice of his snarky stuff and his incredible success and began to talk about it. More than one other reporter came and tried to snatch his story, but Robb and Ned Stark both made an executive decision and did their best to keep the media away from him. He didn't mind; the attention was annoying and unsettling, and he enjoyed throwing the baseball in the game without worrying what he had to say at night.

Other things occupied his attention at night. That wasn't true: _Arya_ occupied his attention at night. Somehow, for some reason, she always seemed to show up after the game, always wanted to go out with him and Robb or spend some time with them after the games, tired as they all were. On off days, she would take him somewhere, sometimes around Winterfell, sometimes just for a drive. Every time they went he told himself he would take the risk of advancing what they had, and each time something she did reminded him how much he treasured her presence and how little he had possessed before and how colossally he could ruin that with just a few wrong words. She never seemed to notice his internal struggle; oftentimes she would bite her lip and look away from him as if she had some of her own demons racking around her mind. Yet, every time he thought they could get no closer without him pinning her to a wall and kissing her like a southern sunset, their heads inevitably twitched nearer; his hand inched half a finger's width closer to hers; she said something that made him think, which made her laugh, which made him shatter. He was spiraling through an endless cascade of emotional trauma, and for him it was a wild mix of loving the way it hurt and forcing himself not to beg to make it end. Whenever he thought to classify what he felt for her, he was caught between the rock of admitting something that might have only been infatuation and the hard place of wanting so badly to have all of his deepest needs of inclusion to be satisfied.

With the all-star break looming a week and a half away and the trade deadline only two a half off, the temperature of the team was beginning to simmer. Where their hopes had been dismal only two months before they were suddenly smelling playoffs and Gendry felt it as potently as the rest of them. At the same time, the slightly less gaping but still wide holes in their team, few as they were, began to make themselves evident. Trade rumors had started to fly, and the general consensus of the back door gossip was that Ned Stark wanted success badly enough that no one was safe, except perhaps Robb or Gendry.

Arriving late in the morning to the stadium on an off-day a few days later, Gendry and Robb found their roommate clearing out his locker.

"The Dreadfort," Theon said disgustedly as he tossed deodorant and undershirts into a box. "The fucking Dreadfort. Old man Stark really had it in for me, eh, Robb?"

Robb's eyes did not quite veil his anger, but he chose to ignore the comment. "What does the Dreadfort have that was worth trading you for?"

"I don't know, but they told me it was a fucking three-team deal. Starfall, I think they said. Me to the Dreadfort, two prospects each from here and the Dreadfort to Starfall, and they send one player here and the Dreadfort. I don't know, they didn't tell me shit."

Gendry stirred, leaning against his locker and watching from his locker with contempt. "Don't be such a prick about it. It's just business. Everyone has to deal with it."

"Yeah, Waters," Theon retorted. " 'Cause you're really all bent out of shape over seeing me go. Try not to cry yourself to sleep at night over it, eh?"

It could have provoked another incident, but Gendry actually sympathized with Theon, asshole that he was. The Dreadfort had its infamies and not a very good record to boot. Theon had seemed quite at home in Winterfell, too; but that was baseball. It was a straight-up business, make no mistake, and the transaction was through the league office and approved. Theon was cleaned up and out of the locker room by the time the majority of the team arrived, and the custodian had already been through to replace the name card over the locker when Luwin arrived to begin the day's practice.

"As I'm sure you've already seen," the manager began, "today Theon was traded to the Flayers in a three-team deal with them and the Comets. What we get out of the deal is center fielder Edric Dayne, who is going to take over the starting job and the two-hole in the order indefinitely. He'll be here by the afternoon. Welcome him into the Direwolves nicely, because he's going to take us a long way."

"Edric Dayne?" Gendry repeated quietly to Robb, after Luwin marched out onto the field ahead of the players. "Never heard of him."

"He's young," Robb responded, staring pensively after their manager. "Second year, I think. Starfall's having a down year. Still, I'm surprised they would deal him—he's young, he's good. He could help them a lot down the road."

"Well," Jory murmured from where he was seated beside them, "now he can help us. Right now."

Robb nodded and Gendry took the words at their face value, cognizant of the fact that he still had little bearing for the inner workings of a team on the scale that those around him had. Robb glanced at the door, as if to verify that Theon had truly left, and then leaned in towards Gendry with a grin. "Well, I guess you can just have Theon's room now, seeing as he'll be moving out. Roommates for good."

Gendry grinned. "I'm just going to be glad to be able to sleep without having thunderous trolls invade my dreams." He kept his real thought silent; it meant a lot to him that Robb was willing to simply accept him as his roommate, as his friend, just like that. Gendry didn't think the team captain would have for just every rookie who walked into the clubhouse.

A number of hours later, after a session of batting practice, bullpen mechanics, the infield/outfield routine and a review of their upcoming opponents, the team dropped back into the clubhouse for a quick shower before they made off to their own business for the evening. Gendry wanted nothing more than a cold dunk under the water before trudging somewhere to lure Arya into his presence for a precious, short time, if only to spend it with her.

His mind was mapping out possible ways to do this when he entered the locker room with Cayn and Desmond to find a short man with pale hair emptying a backpack into the locker formerly known as Theon's. As Gendry watched, many of his sweaty teammates approached the man, catching his attention and obviously introducing themselves. Gendry himself joined the line as everyone shook hands with the newcomer, giving Gendry an opportunity to observe him. In addition to his pale hair, he had sleek features that implied youth, though a sprinkling of facial hair may have been there around the light face. The most startling feature of the man's were his deep blue eyes, deeper than Gendry's, striking in nature.

When he reached the front, the man offered his hand and a warm smile. "Edric Dayne, nice to meet you."

"Gendry Waters. Welcome to Winterfell, Edric."

"Thanks," Edric nodded. Gendry made to let go, but Edric's hand tightened, holding him in place while his other hand came up to grasp Gendry's outstretched arm. "Hey, I've heard about how you've got here and I wanted to tell you that I really admire you. I was rooting for you back in Starfall. And call me Ned. Everybody does."

It was Gendry's turn to nod his gratitude for the compliment, remarking internally that "Ned" seemed a rather common name. He was relieved; a part of him—a large part of him—had never been good at meeting people, but he and Ned seemed to hit it off easily. "I appreciate that. I'll catch up with you later."

He moved off to change, occasionally glancing back to observe the teams reactions to the Direwolves' newest Ned. The continued to be overwhelmingly warm in Dayne's favor, and by the time Gendry had showered and was back in street clothes the impromptu greeting for Edric had turned into a small team party in the clubhouse's lounge. Gendry wasn't of any mind to join them—his mind was still on Arya, and a text message waiting for him on his phone implied that she had time to spare for him, too—until he realized that he was one of the only team members who was not already in the lounge. Jory and another older starter were icing their arms in the training room and a pair of younglings had slipped out early, but other than that he was by himself. He had half a thought to join Jory; his elbow was killing him, as it always did, despite constant and excessive icing. After a deliberative moment he experienced a battle of heart and conscience, he finally admitted that it wouldn't be horrible to spend a short deal of time with his teammates.

Shooting off a quick, reluctant text to Arya explaining what he was doing and that he would be available a few hours later—leaving it quite open to her interpretation—he entered the lounge and quickly became engaged in a game of Billiards with Robb, Mikken, and a pair of utility players. Edric wasn't playing, but Robb already had him locked in a discussion about different ballparks and where each of them liked to hit. The ping pong tables were already in use, as was the game console plugged into the television in the far corner.

"I was never away from the South before college," Edric said, leaning against the table with crossed arms. "I was always used to playing in nothing but blazing heat. Going to White Harbor for the first time my freshman year was a shock."

"Where was your college, then?" Mikken asked.

"University of the Brotherhood, in the Riverlands. It was the only school that offered me a scholarship, and I took it. You didn't go to college, did you, Robb?"

"Nope," the team captain replied, knocking the 6-ball into a corner pocket off three cushions. "Third round out of high school. I took the deal they offered me and never looked back."

Edric chuckled, turning to the other game participants. "Mikken? University?"

He continued on through the players crowded around the Billiards table, asking them about their backgrounds. Gendry wasn't sure it he was just trying to stay afloat in conversation or was genuinely interest in their histories. When the question swung around to him, Gendry just shook his head, and Edric nodded as if it were not an uncommon thing among the players there. Perhaps Edric didn't know that Gendry had never played an official game of baseball in his life before the beginning of the season.

They got around to talking about Starfall and Casterly Rock, and Winterfell and Greywater, running through the league before a tangent led the conversation to football and music, where Gendry's interest tapered off. He began to surreptitiously make attempts to check the time, waiting precariously until a time where he could slip out without it being socially unacceptable, and hopefully snare Arya in some sort of trap for her time. Robb and he kept winning Billiards games, which stalled him, until even Edric picked up a cue and he was roped in for even longer.

"I've only been to Winterfell a couple of times before," Edric told them, as he missed a shot and Gendry stood up to take his. "But it's nice how quiet it is up here, large yet subdued. Nothing like a southern city, where there's endless noise everywhere you go."

"I grew up in King's Landing," Gendry offered, by way of comment.

Edric nodded. "King's Landing, especially. I can't imagine how you possibly did it. I would go insane if I had to live with all of that noise year after year."

"It was pretty bad," Gendry admitted, "but it was still home, to me. I guess. Winterfell's better, though. I don't know if I could deal with it in the winter, but in the summer the atmosphere and the temperature are both pretty nice."

A snide and unexpected voice broke in, "So you actually _do _like it here, then?"

He miscued, so hard that the ball jutted straight right and immediately into a side pocket. It felt like his cue's tip may have splintered, and he grumbled angrily at himself for an uncomfortable moment. _Why does she bloody do that to me?_

When he turned around, Arya was leaning against the doorframe to the lounge in her casual summer garb, with her arms crossed. Her eyes were watching him expectantly, though for what he couldn't imagine. The rest of the team around him seemed to take half a glance in her direction before returning to their activities, some offering a friendly wave and others scowling. Judging from their lack of reaction, he assumed that she entered uninvited into the clubhouse rather often. Come to think of it, knowing her, it wasn't at all surprising.

"Howdy, sis," Robb said, handing Gendry a piece of chalk for his cue, which Gendry seized with a scowl. Even Robb seemed not to think that his sister intruding on their team time—welcome as Gendry may have found it—was no big deal. "What brings you down to the park and this fine and lovely off day?"

"I was bored," she answered flatly, straightening up and striding up to them next to the table. Mikken was already shooting, unconcerned with Arya's presence. "Plus I heard that Dad finally traded Theon and I couldn't get down here fast enough to gloat. Is he still around?"

Robb sighed. "No."

"Damn. I've been telling Dad to lose him for years. Nothing but dead weight in the line-up. I wish I'd gotten to tell him goodbye, myself. Maybe unleash a few of the choice words I've restrained over his Direwolf career."

"No, he's good and well gone," Robb said. He sounded rather grateful that Arya hadn't had the opportunity to speak her mind. "He flew out early this morning. By the way..." Robb turned to Edric, who was watching with a friendly grin. "This is Edric Dayne. He was the swap. He'll be playing center field."

"Call me 'Ned'," Edric said, as he stepped forward to shake Arya's hand. She shook and nodded politely and then stepped back until she was next to Gendry.

Looking up at him, she elbowed him lightly. "You didn't invite me to the party."

"Didn't know it was your type of party," Gendry commented, forgetting about everything and focusing only on her. "You got down here pretty fast, from when I texted you."

Arya shrugged and danced once between feet. "I was downtown, already."

"Doing what?" Robb probed, taking his shot on the table.

She shrugged for a second time, looking the opposite way of Gendry. "Just chilling. It's been a slow day. Not much to do. Mom still thinks I should look for a job, and I want _nothing_ to do with that. Summer is time for me to relax, away from everything school-related."

Robb narrowed his eyes at his sister for a moment before refocusing on the game, and Arya turned back to Gendry. Her features gained a smile as though she knew something he didn't, and a familiar feeling bloomed inside of him as he forced himself to frown at her on the outside. "What?"

"Nothing," she said. "What'd you do today?"

"Threw," he replied. For emphasis and pain relief, he wrung out his arm, turning it to and fro. "Shagged batting practice. Just a typical day on the field. What about you?"

"Not a thing. Until now." As if for her own emphasis, her smile widened. "I've arrived just for the purpose of brightening your day."

"Wonderful," he said sarcastically, and belatedly tried to dodge her punch. It was a glancing blow, and he laughed at her frustrated expression, while Robb and Mikken both shot him questioning eyebrows, which he promptly ignored.

Arya mumbled something under her breath, which did not sound very friendly at all, but otherwise crossed her arms and let her eyes travel away from Gendry and back to Edric. "I've watched you play."

Edric looked up, realized he was being addressed, and tipped his head appreciatively. "Well, I hope?"

"Yes," she answered. Her eyes had turned scrutinizing. If she had been looking at him that way, Gendry knew she would have been chewing him out seven ways to hell over some part of his pitching mechanics or another. He was glad she was not doing it to Edric.

"Ned played with Jon in the minors," Robb said backhandedly, tossing it between the three of them as he rounded the pool table. "Some Single-A club, was it?"

Arya's interest clearly perked. She took a step closer to Edric. "Really?"

"Yeah, a couple of major league teams funneled players to Lemonwood," Edric answered, seemingly smiling fondly at the memory. "I was there for an entire season my second year in the pros. Jon was only there for a week or two on a rehab assignment. A long one, though. We hit it off pretty good."

"Oh. That's good."

"It was a funny coincidence," Edric continued, "because my nanny once told me she cared for a baby named Jon Snow for a time."

"What?" Arya blurted. Robb nearly dropped his cue, brutally missing his shot in the process. This time, her step forward was completely deliberate, moving so far forward that she could have reached out and seized Edric's arm. Edric was clearly surprised, if unperturbed, by the closing of their space. Robb looked just as ready to jump forward. "Say that again."

Edric cleared his throat. "My nanny just said that she cared for a baby named Jon Snow for a while. But she was half-crazy, Wylla was. She had pictures of all of the kids she cared for on her wall, to remember them by. Why my parents never thought that creepy, I have no idea—"

"Tell me about Wylla," Arya demanded, and suddenly Gendry felt like he was intruding. That was stupid. It was clearly a public conversation. Mikken was eying Edric with interest, as well, and Robb was on the edge of his metaphorical seat, but Gendry abruptly felt forgotten. Like he was no longer even there.

"Um," Edric said, stumbling, "there's not much to tell. My dad played for the Monarchs at the time, and we were only in King's Landing for the season. She was just my nanny when he was away and Mom was working. I don't remember much, I was really little. She used to prattle about her kids before me, and Jon Snow was one of them. I don't even know how I remember that, because it was almost twenty years ago, but I thought it was just a coincidence. It couldn't actually be your brother, Jon Snow, after all."

Arya and Robb exchanged a glance. Gendry remained in the background, completely forgotten. Mikken exchanged a glance with him, and his look confirmed it: the two Starks were entranced by Dayne.

Arya turned back to Edric, reaching out and touching his arm. Edric seemed not to notice. "Jon was born in King's Landing. Or in the South, at least. I don't know, specifically."

"You mean that actually could have been Jon Snow?" Edric's face turned confused, disbelieving. "Why was he born down South? I know..." He paused, appearing to rethink his words. "I know you don't have the same mother, but I always assumed... I don't know what I assumed. Who _was _Jon Snow's mother?"

Another glance passed between the two Stark siblings. Mikken apparently made the decision to stay out of whatever startling conversation was beginning; he set his cue down and nodded in farewell to Gendry before going off to find some other people to mingle with. Gendry half-felt like following, not wanting to step in where it was not his business, but he remembered why he had been doing his best to find a way to leave before. That reason was now his only reason to stay, and she looked as though she'd seen a ghost.

"We don't know," Arya finally answered. That piece of news broke through Gendry's conundrum. "We've never known."

Edric was clearly as unprepared as Gendry was, his face breaking open in surprise. A moment later, it became pensive. "Why haven't you ever known?"

Arya shrugged again. Robb merely glanced away. "Our dad's never told us. If you knew anything about our mom, you _would not _ask."

So it was that Gendry became aware that no one knew the true parentage about Jon Snow, and so it was that Arya and Robb essentially seized Edric and engaged him in a long discussion about their brother. Gendry didn't know what to do. He was clearly no longer welcome, but he didn't want to leave, anymore. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do. All three of them had obviously forgotten he was there, and the lounge had begun to empty out finally. He knew he should probably follow the rest of his teammates out, should leave the Starks and Edric to it.

But he didn't.

Instead, he assumed that their conversation would finish in due time and Arya would remember him. She would apologize promptly for abruptly treating him as though he did not exist, and they would continue on to do something together, just as they had more or less planned, before. He stood beside them silently, listening to them debate about Jon Snow, listening to Edric go into lengthy discussion about the South, watching Arya hang on to every word, watch her face shift in interest with each passing through Edric said...

He couldn't help the anger that began to grow inside of him. The conversation didn't end, nor did they remember him. Instead, as only those players who were enraptured in the gaming on the television remained, they _moved_ their discussion to the seating area off to one side. Lost but to follow them, Gendry went and sat in a chair, Robb taking a chair beside, watching helplessly as Edric sat on the couch without ever breaking a word in his recollection. Arya sat beside him, turned to face him, her legs drawn up beneath her, looking for all intents and purposes as if Edric were the most interesting thing she had ever seen in her life.

His fury grew. It became an effort to keep his face blank. He wanted to clear his throat, to do anything to show her that he was still there, that he was waiting for her, that he wanted her to _stop talking to Dayne_. But that would have been assuming and unfair of him, and he didn't want her to think of him that way, so he held his tongue. Every second that passed, however, grew his rage a tick more, to the point where he wanted nothing more than to scoop Arya up in his arms, tell Edric Dayne to close his fucking trap, and stalk out of the lounge. Setting aside the fact that Robb would kill him, Gendry knew that Arya would thrash and kick until he dropped her, and thereafter give him a lengthy lecture—at a high volume, of course—on how stupid and bull-headed and incredibly idiotic he was, before going back to continue their discussion.

He watched the clock spin from the beginning of their conversation until an hour had passed. He might as well not have been there. None of the three glanced at him once. He tested them, shifting his body posture, craning his neck; nobody reacted. He wanted more than anything for Arya to look at him, to just remind him that _she knew he existed_. Instead, at some point in her captivated state, she reached out and put a hand on Edric's arm, attracting him enough to ask some question; Gendry didn't hear it over the boiling blood rushing to his ears and face.

It wasn't fair, not at all. He felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach until he fell to his knees, a feat not all too easy to do. For a long moment, he glared at her hand on his arm, both of them acting like it wasn't there or that it was just casual. Robb gave it a cursory glance, as well, Gendry noticed, but didn't comment on it in the slightest, so caught up was _he _in what Edric was saying. When Arya didn't retract it—at all—Gendry thought he might explode. Glaring at Edric told him in only a few seconds that it would do no good; he was as dead to Edric as the other two.

All of a sudden, he didn't want to be there anymore. He didn't want to sit there, completely ignored, and watch Arya smiling and grinning and laughing at some guy she'd just met. He wanted to shout out, but he had nothing to say; he would have voiced himself—indeed, he began to, trying to insert a word into the conversation that would somehow separate the two of them—but every time he tried one of the three magically burst loudly with a new point. He could have lost his temper half a dozen times, shot half a dozen insults at either Arya or Edric, but he could never even get a word in between them.

It was time for him to go, before he tried to hurt somebody. He cast a forlorn glance at Arya, as if she would read his thought and suddenly become extremely remorseful at forgetting him. She didn't. He stood to leave, and he might as well have been a pillar for as much as she saw him past Edric.

He took a step to Robb, who was still listening, hanging on every word of Edric's. Gendry leaned over to tell Robb he was going to slip out, and Robb waved a hand at him that may have meant dismissal, acceptance, or refusal to pay attention. It only annoyed Gendry more, and he turned away in complete disgust. Edric actually glanced up at him as he left, but looked away before Gendry could channel any of his inner fury and frustration at the damn newcomer.

Gendry didn't know where he was going as he stalked away. When he lost his temper—which wasn't that often—bad things tended to happen to him. With this in mind, he left the clubhouse and stadium as quickly as possible, conscious of not doing any destruction to team property. The fervor with which he cried out his destination at the taxi driver may have been a bit much, but equal parts angry and guilty he tipped the Dothraki man handsomely as he slammed the door at the team apartment complex.

Once he was inside his apartment, he wanted nothing more than to be out of it. His mind was a roiling mass of anger and hurt, frustrated and pained that Arya could forget him so easily, furious that his day had been upended completely by something so trivial and juvenile and heart-wrenching. He felt like punching something heavy and painful, but all of the stuff was Robb's. He realized that Theon's room was empty and tried to occupy himself by moving his clothes into it, but laying on the bed that was now his only reminded him of the trade, which reminded him of Edric, which reminded him of how furious and hurt he was.

Though it was ill-advised after the practice, with games the next three days, Gendry threw on junky clothes and left the apartment, taking off in a random direction at a jog. He didn't know where he was going and he didn't rightly care. While he was running, his arm throbbed less, and the lack of pain dulled his mind so that he could at least try to distract himself.

He ran himself through all of the mechanics and pieces of advice Rodrik Cassel had told him that day during his bullpen session, put together a list of every name on the Direwolves roster in his head and moved through those of the Greywater Lizards and Karhold Suns while he was at it, and wondered for a good hell of a long while for the billionth time about where he had come from. Those thoughts only lasted him through the first three miles; after that, renewed fury powered him, and though his legs burned and his breath was heavy he didn't stop.

The route varied. He wasn't sure where he was going. Time was out of the window; the sun sank from halfway up the sky to halfway closer to the horizon and he didn't slow down. Miles began to slip by without him noticing them as he roundabout made his way sort of back to where he thought the apartment complex was. He didn't mind being exhausted; it just meant that he could fall asleep without having to think about all of his problems. They were probably all still back in the lounge, talking about Jon Snow and every other fucking thing, as well. They didn't care about him; she didn't care about him. Why should he bother his thoughts with her? At all? Ever?

By the time he rounded a bend and saw the apartment complex looming above the other buildings a block away, he was ready to be finished, angry or not. He would be lucky if he was able to walk the next day, much less pitch. That was good; it would take all his mental strength to focus on working his body the right way, and not steaming over things that shouldn't have mattered.

He came to a stumbling halt before the steps up to the complex and bent immediately over his knees. He had been running for hours, he thought, much longer than he had ever run before. His shirt weighed a few pounds more than it had when he left, in pure water weight, and he felt as though he could have eaten enough for a king's banquet. Yet the annoying, pestering, searing thoughts still zipped through the back of his mind, without any concern for the pain they were causing him. At least his exhaustion bit deeper.

For five minutes, he probably stood there hunched over his knees, trying to control the wobbling of his knees and to catch his breath. When he finally stood up, he found Arya Stark seated on the steps, watching him.

He froze. They spent long moments staring at each other. She was dressed exactly as she had been at the stadium, seated on the warm cement with her purse and phone lying beside her. Her eyes were wide; they weren't sorry. He couldn't have said what they were. Maybe accusing, perhaps even angry. There may have been a hint of hurt in them, even, and when he saw it his fists tightened and he surged with anger as though Edric had escorted her to the stairs himself.

Finally, he could stand the pause no longer, aware that he was drenched with sweat and filthy and that she was sitting there, beholding him shamelessly. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you," she replied. Her voice didn't give away as much of her mood as her eyes did. "You left the stadium without even saying goodbye."

He stared at her. "Yeah. So?"

She recoiled. It wasn't much, but it was there, and it was almost enough to make him regret saying it. "Why did you do that? I thought we were going to do something. Or... something."

Gendry didn't know what else to do. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Tamping down his anger, he let his frustration propel his arms upward incredulously. "So did I, Arya. So did I."

"Well, what are you acting all high and mighty for?" she demanded. There was no mistaking it; her glare was now accusing.

"High and mighty?" he repeated, near a roar. He took a step closer, forcing himself not to quiver. "_High and mighty_? You call me high and mighty?"

"You're sure acting like it."

"_I'm_..." He stopped. It took a lot of strength to force himself not to say something he would regret at a later time. He ran his hands over his face, remembering every second he had sat and waited for her to acknowledge him, waited for her to give him any sign that he hadn't abruptly vanished. He lowered his hands with effort. "I cannot believe you. I sat there for _an hour_ and you didn't so much as _look _at me once. How can you fucking accuse me of this shit after that?"

"What are you talking about?"

Gendry didn't answer her. He didn't trust himself. He walked right past her, up the stairs, ignoring how much his legs felt like noodles. Through the outer door. Down the hallway. Unsteadily up the stairwell. Down the hall to his and Robb's apartment. He was aware of her following him the whole way.

The rooms were still dark when he went inside. His anger was too exhausting for it to grip him anymore. He was too tired. She followed him in, hesitating on the threshold as he tore off his sweaty shirt and tossed it carelessly onto the floor. He didn't care; he didn't care about anything at that moment.

"Where's Robb?" he demanded as he crossed to the refrigerator and pulled a bottle of water from inside.

"He went to our parents' manor," Arya replied from the front room. There was meekness in her voice. Good. She finally knew that he was angry at her, that he was hurt by her. "He had to pick something up. I drove myself. I came to find you. I was hurt when you weren't there suddenly."

He scoffed, his hand tightening on the water bottle. "Suddenly." He downed the entire container and tossed it hard into the recycling container in the corner of their small kitchen. Stalking back into the main sitting room, where his living space had essentially been, he found Arya standing in front of the couch, watching him with her arms crossed. "_I _was hurt when I sat there for however the hell long it was and you just kept on talking to Neddy about whatever. You never looked at me. You never talked to me. Not once! "

It suddenly occurred to him that he had no real basis for being as angry with her as he was. Did she have a responsibility to acknowledge his presence? _Not really_. No, he was plainly just jealous. And damned if he would admit that to anyone, her first and foremost. No, he was definitely jealous and definitely hurt and definitely needing her.

Arya stared at him. He expected her to lash out, to begin an argument, to scream or shout or do something hectic like she usually did. Instead, a strange look that may have been startled crossed her face. "I did. I looked away, and then the next time I looked you were just gone."

Gendry chuckled, dryly. There was absolutely no humor in the sound whatsoever. "Those two looks were hours apart. I waited there for any sign from you that I existed, and it didn't come. You were too busy talking with that blonde..." He had no insult to fit how he saw Edric. Instead, he laughed. This time, it held a weak humor. "It's too bad, I really kinda liked Ned, too."s

"Is that what this is about?" she demanded, and there was a spark of indignation in her voice. There it was; there was his Arya, peaking through whatever facade she had over herself. "You're just mad because I was talking to Edric?"

"No!" he cried. "I'm _furious _because Edric made you completely fucking forget that I existed! Edric might as well have been your whole world for how much I was there, wanting to talk to you. Oh, no, _you _just had to be close to Edric, listen to Edric, talk to Edric, _feel_ Edric—"

"We were fucking talking about Jon, asshole!" Arya shouted back. They were squared off at each other. He was shirtless and still sweating; she was probably a foot shorter than he, down at least a hundred pounds, and obviously wanting to pound him into the ground. "He knew something about Jon! You don't understand, you're not one of us!"

"You're right! I'm not! I'm too fucking lowborn for m'lady high!" She bristled, and he couldn't stop. "So you spend your whole goddamn time with somebody else! You know, Arya, I don't _care_ that you were speaking to him, I don't _care _that you wanted to talk about _Jon_ with him. I _care _that I was just trying to spend some _time _with you and that you all up and _ignored_ me when I sat there _waiting _for _you_! And _only you_!"

She didn't say anything for a moment. She seemed to be reeling, and Gendry watched her silently. He would have paid a king's ransom to know what was going through her head, but he was half-afraid to know and half-hoping he had opened her eyes to what was going through him. Her face was completely straight, but he could see the confliction of emotions flashing behind her eyes, and he waited in horrible trepidation to hear what she had left so say to him.

Entire moments passed. His chest heaved. She stared at him, her lips trying to move with nothing to say. He was just about to ask her if she was all right when she finally found her voice. "I don't know what to say. I don't know how to fix it. I won't apologize for wanting to know about Jon."

"I don't want you to," Gendry growled. He took a step closer to her. There were only a few separating them. "I don't know what I want." He stopped, shaking his head. "You made me feel like I didn't exist, Arya. Like I wasn't there. That was how I used to feel in King's Landing, when I was just a nobody. You made me feel like that again, and it hurt me more than I thought."

Her expression turned downwards. "I didn't mean to. I didn't want to."

"Well, I didn't want you to, either," Gendry said.

"I didn't forget you," Arya insisted, crossing her arms. Her eyebrows followed her expression downwards, and the anger was back. He could have thrown his head to the sky and howled in frustration. "If you weren't being stupid about the whole thing, you—"

"_Do not put this on me_!" he barked, groaning in pent-up fury. "This is not my fault! I tried and tried and tried and tried to..."

"To do what?!" Arya shouted at him. She stepped, right into his personal space, right into his pocket, right into his face. There were no more steps between them. They were all but touching. "I'm sorry! All right, Gendry, I'm fucking sorry! But I have no fucking clue what you _want from me_!"

He seized her.

Around the waist. With both arms, and lifted her into the air. He was sure that she would have killed him had she not been so surprised, but as it was the breath seemed to leave her body as he raised her until they were eye to eye.

He didn't look away while he strode five paces with her weightlessly innocent face staring wide-eyed into his. They reached the door to his apartment, and half of him had the intention to open the door, drop her on the floor outside, and close the door in her face.

Instead, he pinned her body against it and kissed her.

It wasn't as though he'd never kissed a girl before. He had never kissed Arya, though, and he had never felt the way he did for Arya for anyone else. The moment his lips touched hers a soft gasp escaped her, lost in his breath as they melted together. He wanted to convey everything he felt for her in just the way his mouth could move against hers, in the way her body molded and shrank into his. Everything muscle in his body was tense, his hands pressing her hips against him, his legs snaked between hers to hold her steady and firm. HIs eyes slid closed and he poured as much meaning and as much communication as he could into the simple motion of dragging his lips once over hers and holding himself as close as he did.

He expected her to do many things: punch him, shove him, kick him, scratch him, knee him, hit him, kill him. She did none of those things. Her hands, free from the confines of his pin, slid out from her sides and raked their way up his bare upper body, cutting swathing paths through sweat. When her fingers ran out of muscle and skin to dance over they dragged farther up his neck and twined in his hair, surprising him so much that he almost pulled back.

Before he got the chance, she was pulling him closer, her mouth fighting back against his, trying to take its own possession. Her legs lithely strung out and wrapped around his waist, her thighs tightening to pull herself even higher on him. Her fingers tightened in his hair, wrenching his head backwards so she could keep kissing him from her higher vantage. His hands slid down to the backs of her legs to support her weight, and she shivered in his arms. Both of them moaned at the same time, and the frantic movement of their bodies intensified as if someone had flipped a switch.

Their lips parted, and their tongues clashed in the battleground in between. Gendry couldn't tell who was winning; maybe no one. How it was possible that their bodies could get any closer together, he didn't know, but it seemed to be happening in each moment. They were no longer against the door, but all he focus on was the way her lips were attacking his, how primal urges were seizing him from within, how many steps it was to the bedroom... _his _bedroom—

The back of his calf struck something and he was abruptly thrown off-balance. Trying to recover with the opposite leg didn't work, and it was all he could do to hold onto Arya as they went down, their lips breaking apart as she yelped in surprise.

He landed between the couch and the coffee table, the latter being the item that had inconveniently tripped him up. Arya somehow managed to keep her legs from being crushed beneath his weight, but came down on top of him in a heap, using the hands still wound in his hair and gripping his face to steady herself as they settled.

The position, with her straddling him, albeit whilst awkwardly wedged between two pieces of inconvenient furniture, was prime for continuing their activities. Arya, her face flustered and all anger completely vanished, bit her lip and tightened her hold on him again, leaning in. Her need-filled voice was a whisper in the dark, a light in the night, a beacon on the ocean. "Gendry..."

His name, whispered on her lips, suddenly snapped him out of his aroused daze. Reacting on instinct, horrified at what he had done, his hands shot up from where they had braced his fall and clamped down on her shoulders, stopping her with their faces only inches apart. The breath whisking out of their chests was one, but Gendry shook his head mournfully.

"I shouldn't have done that," he whispered, staring her dead in the eye. "I don't know what possessed me to do that. I'm so sorry."

He tried to pull away, and succeeded in getting absolutely nowhere. Arya held him fast, and looked at him so murderously that he thought his head was about to be torn in two. "What the hell do you mean you shouldn't have done that? You most certainly should have."

"No," he repeated. "No, no, no. I can't. We can't. You're nineteen, you're the sister of my captain and the daughter of my boss, we can't." The words flying from his mouth made him want to throw himself off of a cliff. However low he thought his heart was sinking, he was sure his face was showing tenfold. "And I completely overstepped my bounds and I never should have done that..."

He tried to lift her off of his body. He felt one of her hands leave his hair, and the next thing he knew his cheek was blazing and his ears were ringing. It took all of the time for her fingers to curl back in his hair for him to realize that she had slapped him.

"Oh, no!" she cried in his face as he stared at her, more shocked than hurt. Her face, unsurprisingly, had regressed to anger, which suddenly looked very alluring considering her position on his lap. "You are not going to _fucking_ do this to me, you asshole. No! You kissed me, and from that moment you were mine. Do _not even think_ about going back now, because I'll kicks your ass if you try."

He stared at her for a full moment, blinking like an idiot. "Arya..." Her hand left his face again, and he frantically seized her wrist—as gently as possible—before she could slap him again. "Arya!" he began again, growling now in frustration. _Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl._ "Arya, look what you're doing! Robb could walk in any minute!"

His proclamation seemed to have no effect at first. She stopped fighting, but continued to glare at him, as though her brother walking in to find them in a completely compromised position didn't frighten her in the slightest. Her hands dropped to her sides and she sat up, looking incredibly proud and intimidating as she straddled him defiantly. Had she said anything, anything at all, while in that position he would not have been able to stop himself from throwing her down on the couch and taking her, Robb be damned. But she held her tongue, and after a long, arrogant moment of staring down at him from her controlling position she climbed to her feet without her eyes ever leaving his.

He sighed as she rose, both in relief and disappointment. She kicked him as she moved off of him and stalked away without apologizing. He glared at her as she plopped herself down in a chair, crossing her arms. Her shirt was disheveled, and she made no move to correct where it had ridden up, revealing tantalizing inches of skin around her waist. Her hair was equally messy, strands escaping their collections to hang individually about her red face and swollen lips. Murderous glare or no, she looked downright desirable, and Gendry had to force himself not to seize her again and pull herself back down.

_We can't, we can't, we can't._

"What the fuck do you want to do now?" Arya snarled at him. "Pretend that didn't happen? Fat fucking chance, stupid."

Gendry looked away and tried to translate his thoughts into words. His body groaned and winced in protest as he forced his way to his feet, dusting himself off and running his hands through his hair as he did so. He was quite aware that he wasn't wearing a shirt; Arya's eyes ran down to his chest shamelessly, drinking him in while wearing unbridled rage on her face. "That didn't happen," he forced himself to say. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

"Why. The. Fuck. Not?"

He shook his head, growling in frustration. "Because it can't! Look at me! Look at you! We're two different people in two different lives!"

"You're acting like we just swore ourselves away to each other," she retorted. "It was a fucking _kiss_!"

To that he stopped, and tried to keep the disappointment from his voice as he quietly asked, "Is that all it was?"

She glared at him. Her mouth remained shut. No effort at all to answer him, and a collection of relief, excitement, and anxiety bombarded his system. After a long moment, she growled and slapped her knees angrily. "You stupid bull! Why can't you just do something right, for once?"

"I'm _trying_ to do right," Gendry heard himself say. He wasn't quite sure why he was saying it, because he certainly didn't want to, but with a curse he heard himself continue, "What can we possibly have?"

"Each other," Arya said. He wished that she wouldn't bite her lip; it was far too distracting for her own good.

"For how long? At what cost?"

"However long we want," she said. She looked down at herself and then at him, shaking her head in clear frustration. "I'd say that we have no problem making it clear what we want from each other."

"What we just did is not what I want from you. No..." He brought his hand down hard on the edge of the sofa at the dejected look that slashed across her face. "...that's _not _what I meant. I want that, too. But I want... I want..." _What do I want?_

"I want you, Gendry." She was quiet, so far away and yet so close. No touch of anger whatsoever on her voice. Her eyes were wide, open, truthful, but full of strength and courage, so much more courage than he had. _Gods, she is my light..._ "I want everything about you. That's what I want."

They stared at each other across the distance they had forced between themselves. He was struck speechless by her blatant honesty, struggling to find words to reply with, something to tell her what she wanted to hear, something to tell her all of his fears. "I don't have anything to give you. I am nobody."

"You're Gendry," she replied. "That's enough."

He growled in frustration, at the same time asking himself why he was trying to find reasons not to be with her, after the weeks and weeks where it was all he could do to steal a few minutes of time where she wasn't in complete control of his mind. _Because if Ned Stark finds out, I'm off the team_. Probably. _Because if Robb finds out, I'm out of the team's good books. _Certainly. _Because if Robb finds out, I'm dead_. Definitely. _Because if Jon Snow finds out, I'm _really _dead._

"There's an age gap."

"I give exactly zero fucks about a stupid age gap."

He spread his arms wide. "What you see is what you would get. I have only the money I've made off of this contract, no more. No inheritance. No future if I fuck up. No past to fall back on."

"I don't care." Her tone told him she meant it.

Gendry groaned. "Why are you being so difficult?"

"Why are you being so stupid?" she replied. Malice had been left long ago; now she only sounded tired and confused. And a tad bit upset. "Why did you kiss me if you didn't want to? Why do you resist when you look as though it's killing you? Am I that horrible? Am I that ugly?"

"You're not ugly," Gendry said, chuckling at the pure absurdity of the comment. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." He wasn't sure what to call the expression that crossed her face, but it clearly wasn't smug. "Look, I did want to kiss you, and I want to kiss you again, and hold you, and the gods know all of the other things I want to do to you... but... look at me. I'm no good for you. I have nothing."

"You don't need anything," Arya insisted. "I don't need anything from you except you. All I need is Gendry. I don't need you to have anything."

He glared at her, knowing at that moment that he would never be able to make her see reason. He would never be able to make her see why he was a bad investment, a poor idea, a worthless conquest. If he walked away from her then, it would haunt him for the rest of his life, knowing that she had laid her heart bare before him, that he had a chance with the one that broke open the guarded, precarious heart of the orphan boy of King's Landing.

While his blue eyes stared endlessly into her gray ones—seven hells, he could do it all day—he scratched the back of his head. The gleam behind hers seemed to indicate that she already knew she had won. "If your brothers find out, they'll kill me."

Her smirk was unsettling. "Yes, they will."

"If your father finds out... I don't know what he'll do. I don't know how he'd react."

The absence of said smirk did nothing for his confidence. "I don't, either."

There was an unsteady moment between them, and then she rose to her feet, stepping back over to him lightly. Her eyes dropped from his as he let her get closer. Her hands came up and rested on his shoulders, then ran down and back up his arms before falling back to her side.

He let her do it, marveling at how his skin tingled beneath her hands. "We'd have to keep it a secret."

She nodded. "A secret."

"I don't like secrets," he told her. "Secrets are hard to keep. When secrets get out, bad things happen."

"What choice do we have?" Arya asked him. She reached for his hands, both of them, and their fingers thread together of their own accord. "Would you prefer we put it out there for everyone to see?"

He hesitated, drinking in her closeness. "I don't know."

"Me, neither," she said, nodding. She bit her lip again, unthreading their fingers, and then wrapped them around his waist. He held her properly in his arms for the first time, and admitted instantly that he would never want to stop. "If this is the way I have you, then it's the way I have you. I won't give it up."

His breath left him in a rush and he held her tighter. She felt so fragile that it seemed she may break if he squeezed too hard, but he knew she was stronger than he could ever be. "Agreed."

They would probably have stood there with their arms wrapped around each other forever. As it was, it was a good long while before Arya pulled back and stood up on her tiptoes, placing a hand on his cheek so as to draw him down in the lightest, most tender kiss he had ever been given.

Which was precisely when the lock to the apartment began to rattle.

Their heads broke apart as one, both of them turning to face the door, and then at each other in their frantic panic. Gendry realized he was not wearing a shirt, and let go of Arya at the same time she let go of him. A precious second was spent locating his sweaty shirt and swiping it off the floor, and then he dove for his room just as the front door opened to admit Robb.

Gendry froze as soon as he was out of sight of the sitting room, listening frantically.

"Oh, hey," Robb said, apparently unsurprised to see Arya in his apartment. "What's up?"

"You left your phone in the lounge," Arya told him. Gendry could have kissed her; yes, he very well could have.

"Oh," Robb said. Gendry began to relax. "I was wondering what happened to that. Thanks. You've just been sitting here, waiting?"

"Yep."

In the midst of pulling a clean shirt over his head, Gendry froze again, listening tensely as Robb hesitated. "Where's Gendry?"

"In his room, I think. He let me in."

"Oh. Nice of him. You guys have a nice talk? Weird of him to disappear like that, earlier."

"Nah. We just had some really hot sex on your couch."

Completely immobile, Gendry slipped on the floor and fell onto his bed. Whatever face Robb made in response to her comment, it was enough to make Arya burst out laughing in the other room as her brother grumbled quite audibly about unnecessary jokes. When Gendry emerged from his room wearing clean clothes, Robb grimaced at him and rolled his eyes.

Arya's smirk, on the other hand, was decidedly knowing.


	14. Chapter 13

**13**

"Good morning!"

Her father watched her bounce around the dining room table and into her chair. There was no better way to describe it; she felt as though her feet were hardly touching the ground. She tried to appear nonchalant, which was very difficult when you were essentially floating. Bran was not at the table, thank the gods, and Rickon was too busy eating to notice, but Ned Stark peered at her suspiciously over his newspaper as she began to pile bacon onto her plate with absolutely no concern whatsoever.

"Morning," he greeted. "I see you slept well."

"Yep," she blurted with a warm beam. And she had, falling asleep with the memory of Gendry's lips on hers, her frantic need to deepen it past anything she had ever before experienced, his tingling mastery of the kiss that nearly made _her_—Arya Stark—faint. He had pursued her long after she left, violating her thoughts, permeating her dreams.

She ducked her head and viciously tore into her bacon to hide the blood rushing to her cheeks.

When she trusted her complexion enough to look up again, Ned Stark was still watching her appraisingly. Asking him what he found so interesting was too dangerous, because her giddiness was obvious even to her. She chose diversion. Nodding towards the paper, she commented, "I thought you would pick up a pitcher before the trade deadline, not a center fielder."

"I've still a few weeks left," Ned commented, finally dropping his eyes and raising the paper again. "I can still put together a deal. If the bullpen keeps performing like it has been, maybe I won't need to."

"Down the road, in the playoffs... you've got a chance to go deep, Dad. You might want that extra arm."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?" he replied with a small grin. "We've only just turned things around in the last month. The playoffs are still two more away, and the Lizards are hanging tough with us. The all-star break is coming up, down in Sunspear. Your brother will probably be starting for the National League."

"Good, as he should."

Her father eyed her again. "He told me you were down to the stadium yesterday, and met Edric."

She swallowed her bacon. "Yes."

"I tried to draft him, you know," Ned said. "Dondarrion wanted him for the organization, for whatever reason, and I did my best, but the Comets got him before our turn came around. Good player, good head, good attitude."

"Yeah," she agreed. Edric had been more than willing to spend over an hour talking exclusively about Jon with her and Robb. Granted, now they were even more confused than before about his maternal parentage... but at least he had been willing to divulge everything he knew. She stared at her father, biting her lip without him noticing, and decided once more against trying to prod the information about her half-brother from him. "Heavy price, though. One of your best young arms and a base running genius from the Crag."

"It's worth it," Ned replied, raising an eyebrow at her thoughtfully. "Especially for a pennant run, if that's truly what I'm supposed to be after."

Nymeria bounded into the dining room and plopped her head up on Arya's lap with absolutely no ado. Arya laughed and happily scratched her dog's ears, murmuring a promise for a run in the woods later on. As always, her beloved pet licked her hands and by that simple gesture any hurt over recent disregard was erased. _You have to meet Gendry_, she thought to her dog, smiling at the slobber job Nymeria would do on her... on Gendry's face. _You'll like him. He'll be afraid of you. _Nymeria barked softly and nuzzled Arya's hand, as if she had actually heard the thoughts and agreed with them.

"Oh, your mother volunteered to take me to the stadium later," her father announced, lowering his newspaper enough to say it. "I almost thought she would go to the game with us, for once, but I should have known better. In any case, you can go in early to the stadium. I know you want to get there early today..."

Arya froze, halfway towards picking up a piece of toast. _What do you know? _How _do you know?_ "What? Why?"

Her father regarded her for a moment. His eyebrows scrunched down—didn't shoot up; a good sign. "Because of Jon. I assumed you'd want to go down early and see him before the game. It's been a while since you've seen each other."

Jon. Of course. The Night Watch were in town for an interleague matchup; the series with them and a brief three-game away trip to King's Landing were the Direwolves last two assignments before the all-star break. Jon. In Winterfell. Which didn't happen for _years_. How could she possibly have forgotten? Especially after the encounter yesterday with Edric, after which she had—admitted only grudgingly and only because she still felt horrifically guilty over it—forgotten about Gendry, after what had happened when Gendry's lips electrified hers, when the feeling of his hands caressing her skin... Jon. Jon. She is thinking about Jon and nothing else. How could she possibly have forgotten, with how bent out of shape she and Robb had been the previous day?

"Oh," she blurted, before she could help herself. "Of course. Sorry." She bit her lip and the toast at the same time to stop herself from saying anything further.

"Okay," her father said. He calmly, quickly folded his newspaper and slapped it down on the table, leaning his elbows against it and threading his fingers as he moved closer to her with a wry smile on her lips. "What happened? It was either something really good or really awful if you walk up to the breakfast table in a good mood."

"Nothing," she said. "I slept well. I had a cool dream."

Ned Stark never bought anything; he was not about to start, now. "What was it about?"

"Hey, Dad."

Bran rolled into the room, causing their father to turn his attention from Arya. She hoped he didn't notice her heave of relief. Rickon was oblivious to everything, tossing a bacon strip underneath the table to Shaggydog, Nymeria's brother. The two canines immediately went into an under-the-table bacon battle while Bran swung around the table, picking a magazine from his lap and dropping it next to Ned Stark's plate.

"It's that article about your closer," Bran said. "It finally came out. Cover story for _Time_. That's big stuff."

Arya dropped her food and vaulted across the table to wrench the magazine from her father's hands. Her brother gave a shout of surprise, but her father only raised a wry eyebrow as she flipped it around to face her and surveyed it. A large picture of Gendry was superimposed over the cover page and the _Time _logo, standing imposingly and darkly on the mound as he took the sign for a pitch. Even an image of him standing so perfectly made her breath short. Her eyes slid down, over the title of the piece, and she scoffed. " 'The Untouchable One'," she read aloud incredulously. " 'The Unlikely Story and Rise of Baseball's Deadliest Closer'. Seven hells, who does she think she is, writing this shit?"

"Language at the table," her father admonished softly. He still looked amused. Bran, on the other hand, was finding it difficult not to fall out of his wheelchair laughing. "Your prospect in the nation's spotlight for the first time. Exciting?"

She grinned, already flipping through the magazine to the page where the story began. _Yes, that's why I'm excited, Dad._ He just had to keep believing that. Her eyes skimmed past the name and credentials of the thrice-cursed and hideously gorgeous author, and she dove right into the story, the words slipping aloud past her lips.

"_He doesn't look like much_. Who the hell starts an article with that?" she demanded. Bran hid another snicker while their father waited patiently. "_He answers only the questions he is asked, asks none himself. He is polite but short, straight forward but not exactly forthcoming. His eyes follow the baseballs being hit in the background like they have been trained to do so from birth, but the fidgeting way he sits makes it seem like he's never more uncomfortable than watching them move through the air without chasing them down._" He looked up from the article, at her father and sibling. "I want to shoot this woman."

Her father gestured for her to continue, his amused look sinking into a pensive glare. She obliged him. "_It's hard to believe, watching him, that he had never stepped onto a real baseball field before April of this year. It was hard to believe it when records verified he had never thrown a single pitch for his high school, or any school, anywhere, in his entire life. Yet in April he marched onto the professional field as if it was the only place in the world he belonged, sweeping up the game of baseball into his back pocket on the fast track to the major leagues. The true story of Gendry Waters doesn't begin on the baseball field, but everything leading up to it signals a destiny beyond any faith the sport usually holds. But how could a player so unbelievably successful have cloaked himself on the scouting radar for his entire life, and suddenly emerge so victorious on the professional level?_"

Arya stopped reading and looked up at Ned Stark with wide eyes. "Dad, this is not good. She's making him sound like some kind of... scam."

His eyes were unintelligible. "Keep reading."

"_Gendry Waters grew up largely alone in an orphanage in Flea Bottom. His mother died young. His father was not in the picture..._" She went on to read several quotes by Gendry that made her heart seize by secondhand quotation. More than a few challenged her ability to mask her emotions in front of her family. "_'Sometimes I would lie awake at night and pretend someone was coming for me in the morning. It would put me to sleep, where dreams were reality for a bit. When I woke up in the morning, it wasn't difficult to forget that the dreams weren't reality. No one ever came.'_"

"I'm weeping," Bran said, but only half-sarcastically. Arya shot him a glare that dared him to say one more word even remotely cruel, and he held up his hands in surrender.

There was more character introduction, including an interview with a shop mechanic named Tobho Mott, that Arya had never been told before by Gendry himself. It wasn't so much revealing as relieving; she could now see a part of his life that, if he hadn't precisely been hiding it from her, he certainly hadn't been gallivanting with it strewn like a banner in his wake. The bubbling inside of her that had finally burst the previous evening wanted nothing more than to know anything and everything about him that she could, and as hesitant as she was to admit it, the Targaryen reporter bitch lady was providing her with a unique insight.

"_Understandably tight-lipped about the first source of his professional exposure, Waters nevertheless admits it was a shot out of the blue. 'It was from one day to the next,' he explains. 'One minute I was destined for doing a low income job for the rest of my life and then all a sudden a major league owner is telling me I have what it takes to earn a contract. It was more than a dream come true. I couldn't believe it. I pinched myself a thousand times that day.'_" She grinned to herself. Gendry had kept his mouth shut over meeting her, over meeting Ned Stark, and though Targaryen went on to reiterate that his only previous exposure to the game was in the streets, it never seemed to surface how Gendry had actually been found for the first time. She was glad he had kept it to himself; it was a moment between them, their _first _moment, and she quite sappily treasured it in secret.

The story moved on. It gave brief descriptions of his struggles and triumphs in the minor leagues and then quickly exploded into his major league success, which delved farther into Gendry's mental and mechanical mindset. "_Waters got to the major leagues off of his fastball and he's not making a secret of it. 'The reason I'm here is because I throw hard. But a lot of people can throw hard and not make it, and that's the risk I run every day. All I can do is keep throwing my stuff, keep trying to get better to help my team, and hopefully I'm not just a flash that's come and gone.'"_

Arya glanced up at her father as the next paragraph began. "_No one can doubt Waters success on-field. With not a single blown save in a dozen opportunities, nearly twice as many strikeouts as innings pitched, and an opponent batting average hardly over .100, he's left hitters completely clueless and dazed right and left. His success has drawn equal amounts of criticism and credit from players and managers across the league, parts of admiration and parts of suspicion. Stannis Baratheon, manager of the Dragonstone Demons, has been the most foremost with his comments. 'I don't know where he came from,' Baratheon says, 'but relievers like that don't just pop out of the fog like he did. I've nothing but respect for Ned Stark, but something tricky surrounds Gendry Waters.' Randyll Tarly of the Horn Hill Hunters and outfielder Gregor Clegane of the Lions have also been unashamed in voicing their misgivings about the unbelievably successful start to Waters' young career._

"_But not all in the baseball community feel that way. Jeor Mormont has helmed the Night Watch for nearly twenty years. 'The lad's got grit,' Mormont says. 'A competitor. Goes out and plays baseball, and doesn't give a [expletive].'_" Arya looked up to favor her father with a wry grin; he had always had a rusty and healthy respect for Jeor Mormont. "_'That's the kind of player that's got the stomach to keep going no matter who tells him he can't.' Brynden 'Blackfish' Tully, who tied the record for consecutive games played before voluntarily sitting out of respect to record-holder Barristan Selmy, likewise had nothing but good words for Waters. 'The kid doesn't back down. Who cares where he came from? He can throw a ball hard, and well, and the only people complaining are the ones he sends back to the dugout.'_"

"_Indeed, it seems self-serving to doubt Waters' continued performance, and the effect he's had on his team. The Direwolves have trampolined sixteen games up in the division since Waters' major league debut. Manager Ned Stark says, 'I don't know if the team has rallied around Gendry, but he certainly hasn't been a hindrance. I can't say enough about his attitude, his work ethic, his will to compete. Without him, I will say we wouldn't be where we are today.'_"

She paused long enough for Ned Stark to notice her icy glare at him. He shrugged with a sheepish smirk. "Yeah, I commented. She called me, what could I say?"

Arya shook her head and went back to reading. "_Where would Gendry Waters be if he hadn't have signed a minor-league contract with the Direwolves before the season? 'I don't know and I'm not going to start thinking about it,' Waters says, himself. 'I'm here, and that's the only thing I'm focusing on. that's the only thing I need to focus on.' He gives a similar answer to a question posed about finding his first baseball mitt by chance, or a question about being raised in a different setting—which is another enigma about Waters... is it an incredible story about a zero-to-hero from inner city King's Landing, or is it another attempt to hide the truth?_

"_Such is a question that more than one person has also asked, and, contrary to speculation about Waters' worth, this question about his past turns up much more than it appears. An anonymous source reported, confirmed later by this reporter, that Waters' DNA had been tested for parentage in a King's Landing clinic. It came back positive for a tested match._"

It took a few moments for Arya to realize that she had stopped reading aloud. A very logical reason explained why; she was rereading the next sentence silently to herself for the tenth time, her heart dropping, her breath seizing, feeling for all intents and purposes as if she had just been tossed off of the Great Keep only to land in the icy cold Narrow Sea. She looked up to find her brother and father impatiently waiting for her to continue. Several gulps finally allowed her to get out the words necessary to read what was written.

"_Gendry Waters is the biological son of the late Robert Baratheon, former owner of the King's Landing Monarchs._"

The effect was even worse than the jaw-dropping effect the words had had on her. Bran, who had been standing perfectly still, fell sideways in his wheelchair, landing it on its side, swearing the whole way down. Ned Stark did not seem to notice his son's profane demise; on the outside, he showed little shock behind the tightening of his eyes, but Arya recognized the grim, cold set of his jaw that denoted her father's annihilated mind. Even Rickon, who she thought hadn't been listening in the slightest, was staring at her, completely guffawed. Nymeria, sensing the mood of the room, even stood bolt upright and glared at Arya as if the thing in her hands was a live threat.

"I knew it," her father whispered.

Arya nearly dropped the magazine. "What? You _knew _about this and didn't _tell _me?"

Ned Stark blinked, as though he hadn't realized he had spoken aloud, and then a mask of ice solidified on his face once again. "I never... _knew_. But I suspected. Luwin did, too. At first, we did. He's the spitting image of Robert, as he was twenty years ago." He took a moment to stare dazedly off into nothing. "We... Gendry's nothing like Robert, we just attributed the similarity in looks and location off to coincidence once we got to know him..."

"Could this be a lie?" Arya demanded frantically. "Could this be some bull shit attempt to gather attention for the story?"

Steel reasserted itself in his voice. His knuckles were white as he gripped the tabletop, a grim glint in his eyes as he surveyed his daughter. "I don't know. For more than us two, me and Luwin, to think the same thing, it raises the probability of its truth tenfold." His glare could have frozen the newspaper. "Go on."

Shaken, Arya lifted the newspaper back up before her eyes. _Can I read? _she thought, trying to remember how to form words from the mass jumble of symbols before her. "_Waters' insistence that he knew nothing of his biological father seems genuine, yet the circumstances cast a shadow of doubt over his and his team's situations. Ned Stark was, under an unprecedented amendment to Baratheon's will, bestowed the Monarchs franchise after Baratheon's untimely death following a car accident earlier this year. The accident occurred only days after the signing of Waters' contract, reputedly only days after the amendment was made to Baratheon's will. Waters' success is unquestionable, and being the son of Robert Baratheon is certainly a boost to confidence, knowing or not, but questions rise surrounding Ned Stark's seemingly generous signing of the unproven prospect. Was a backdoor deal for signing Baratheon's unacknowledged son a tool for Stark to gain a foothold on two major league baseball teams? Stark declined to comment on the contestation of the will when it was taken to court, furthering suspicion. The amendment was subsequently found to be invalid, barring Stark's control of the Monarchs. Nevertheless, did Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark made a deal behind closed doors for a brighter future for a previously unknown son with no future?_"

Arya couldn't read any more. The article had only a few paragraphs more, furthering speculation and lies before reiterating Waters' undeniable success and predicting that his future was bright, regardless, but she couldn't finish it after what she'd just read. With horror, she realized that she was blinking back tears, and hurled the magazine away from herself with a practiced arm, missing Bran's head by inches.

Her father appeared no less shocked than she felt. Equally as angry, as well. Rage was rare to bleed through Ned Stark's voice, but it was plain as day, now. "Of _course _I didn't comment on the case. It was _ongoing_. Who the hell does she think she is?"

"This can't be legal," Arya said, furiously stamping her fists against the underside of the table.

Bran agreed, nodding vigorously with wider eyes than Arya had ever before seen on his face as he finally picked himself off of the floor with his arms. "That's libel, you can sue her for that. You can sue her for that, Dad, you can. You have to. You would _never _do that, you can't let her shame your name like that!"

"You didn't do that, did you?" Her voice trembled horribly as she whispered it. She couldn't believe he would, but she needed to hear it from him.

"Of course I didn't," Ned Stark growled. His frustration was not directed at them, but he stood from his chair with hands shaking with anger. "I swear to you, Arya, I did not know. I did not know he was Robert's son. _You _were the one who brought me to him, you saw what he could do before I did. _That's _the reason I signed him, there is no other. I didn't even _know _about the stipulation in Robert's will only just before he died!"

Her finger arced like lightning should have been flying from it as she indicated the fallen magazine. "Is there... _any _chance at all... that she is lying? Is there any chance Gendry isn't Robert's son?"

It was like time slowed. It took an eternity for Ned Stark's shoulders to rise and fall, and another for his head to inch left and then right. "There's always a chance, Arya, but..." He shook his head fully, and turned away from the table. "I have to make calls. Right now. Before the vultures descend." He was two steps from the door before he froze and looked back. "Arya... please don't speak to him about this until I do. I have to come out up front and let him know what the truth is. With any luck, I can get there before he read that... article."

Arya nodded slowly, still half-shocked, and watched her father leave the room. She sat there after he'd gone, staring at the wall incredulously. _What just happened? _Ten minutes before, she had still been basking in the girlish ecstasy of a first kiss with a heart-smashing crush. The Direwolves were winning, her father's gambit had turned out perfectly for their franchise. All that was rushing through her mind right now was the image of a baseball with its leather covering torn off, the spools of yarn inside unwinding at the speed of light.

She was standing before she realized it. She was moving before she had a chance to stop herself, moving for the door, a greater destination in mind.

"Where are you going?" Bran called after her, the shock of the moment still lacing his voice.

"Tell him nothing," she called back, pausing only long enough to eye Rickon with a warning glare of Stark chill. "Don't you dare, either!"

Her brothers wisely kept their mouths shut as she tore from the room. Catelyn, who had left breakfast before her arrival and was clearly unaware of what had transpired there, called out to her as she passed the sitting room doorway. Arya pretended not to hear and slammed the door into the garage before her mother had a chance to stop her. Pausing only long enough for the garage bay to open, she pulled out her father's car and swung it around down the Stark Manor driveway, spraying gravel waywardly in her haste to reach the road and zip off into Winterfell.

It took twenty minutes to reach the team apartment complex where a simple kiss from Gendry had turned the previous night into the giddiest, if not happiest, of her life. She pounded on the door for a full minute, without either the man in question or Robb answering, before finally admitting that neither of them was there. Her brother would never leave his sister out, no matter the mood he was in, and she had a notion that Gendry would admit her if doing so meant his subsequent death. That left only one place that either of them would be.

The Great Keep was a buzzing structure of low-key activity, as the employees scurried about preparing the field, its concession stands, and the facilities for the upcoming game. She recognized most of the workers if she knew hardly any of their names, but today slipped past them without acknowledgement as she made for the Direwolves' clubhouse. Her personal key got her through the locked door obtrusively, but she paid her entering no mind in her determined state.

The clubhouse was largely empty so early in the day; most of the team would not arrive for another hour or two. Arya rushed into the lounge first thing, fully intending to take any _Time _magazine she found there in order to burn it before anyone on the team had an opportunity to read it. There were only four players in the room, but Arya froze on the threshold. Robb sat in one of the armchairs of the room, bent over with his elbows on his knees, the article clearly opened up in his hands. Jory sat beside him, looking grim. Both men looked up as Arya entered, their eyes flashing towards the magazine in Robb's hands and back to her even as she did the same to them.

She swallowed. "Where is he?"

Robb regarded her distantly for a moment before shaking his head. "Arya, I don't think you should bother him right now."

Instead of bellowing belligerently, as she wanted to, she thrust a finger at the filth in his hands. "Does he know? Did he read it?"

Her brother's empty stare, on a vacantly unchanging expression, was all the answer she needed. She grimaced, already too late to prevent the first strike. Perhaps it was better this way; now there was nothing to conceal, as she may have tried to do had she met no one on her way.

"Where is he, Robb?" she demanded again, trying to appear imposing even while wrapping her arms around herself.

"He needs time, Arya," Robb diverted once again. "He's shaken up. Give him a little time to cool down before anyone talks to him. Even _I_ don't want to talk to him right now—"

"I'm his friend," she retorted. When he made to cut in, she clarified, "_Not _his captain. I have to talk to him. He'll open up to me."

Robb watched her with clear misgiving, fighting a war in his head. The magazine crumpled in his lap as he considered, his eyes flicking out of the room. Finally, he sighed, tossing the article down onto the cushions beside Jory. "He's in the weight room. Be careful, Arya... he's in a mood, and I _really _don't think it's wise to disturb him right now."

"He would never hurt me," Arya replied, with complete conviction.

"That's not what I'm worried about," Robb said right, eyeing her uneasily once again, but he offered no clarification and she was unwilling to wait for one. As soon as she was sure he was finished talking, she was out the door once again and striding down a short hall and side corridor, at the end of which the weight room stood.

Music that usually blasted from the room's speakers was eerily absent. Almost all of the machines in the otherwise empty room stood unused, creating a persisting gloom over the bright equipment. At first, Arya could not see Gendry throughout the mass of weights. He was on a bench press in the very rear of the room, nearly obscured from view by the intermittent apparatuses. There was more weight on the bar than she could squat—probably twice over—but it appeared that even Gendry was having clear difficultly. His arms were quaking under the weight; beneath his breath, a guttural groan of effort was slinking throughout the room. He had no spotter despite his apparent efforts, but even as he finished a struggling repetition he brought the bar back down to his chest for another. She nearly sprinted across the room to save him, but she need not have worried. Though he had more difficulty than he had the last repetition, the bar even sinking an inch at one point before he recovered, his arms finally reached full extension, and he racked the weight with a growl ascending to a shout before he sat up.

He was in a black sleeveless shirt and athletic shorts, his back turned to her. She didn't know how long he'd been in the weight room, but the sheen of sweat covering his arms and the back of his neck suggested it had been awhile. His chest shuddered with exhaustive breath, his head hanging from exertion, but even as she watched he staggered to his feet and marched his way to a shoulder press machine. She could have drooled over his attractiveness factor at that moment, but the reminder of why she was there killed her lust.

"Gendry," she called softly.

He appeared not to her, completing his set on the machine without pause, his body shaking nearly as much as it had on the bench press. When he was done, though, he calmly turned to her as if she had been there for hours, waiting. He may have been commenting about the weather. "Is it true, Arya? Back door deal? Generous signing? Tell me if it's true."

In her startled state, startled at the low and dangerous undertone of his voice, startled at the anguishing glint in his eyes, Arya stumbled over her words. "No, no, of course it's not true."

"Of course it's not true," he repeated slowly, after a moment of strained pause. He turned away from her and strode to a curling rack. Without hesitation, he lifted the heaviest bar off of the bottom peg and heaved with all his might. He completed the first repetition with extreme difficulty; the second one faltered halfway up and he was barely able to drop it crashing back to the rack without major injury.

Arya took several tentative steps closer while he leaned against the curling rack, panting heavily. "Gendry," she asked carefully, "what are you doing?"

His head turned to stare at her. She lost herself for a moment in his deep blue eyes before he exhaled with a dry laugh. "I need you to tell me... that everything that was in that article was a lie. I need to hear it from you. Because right now, you are the only person in the world I trust completely, and I want to know that it's all lies."

With any other person, Arya could have instantly pulled a lie from her back pocket and thrown it in his face. She could have declared that the moon was a ruse or that baseball wasn't a sport, and have whoever she was telling it to believe her. With Gendry... she could not tell a lie.

"My father," she began, taking great care to look him straight in the eye, "would _never _trade someone's career for his own gain. _That _is absolutely false."

There was no visible alteration to his expression, but she could have sworn that his face fell completely. She wanted to take a step closer to him, two steps so that she could lay her hands on his arms and reassure him that his fears were needless. She held her ground, watching the crestfallen face that hadn't truly changed.

At length, he half-turned away, his eyes leaving hers. "I believe you." He sounded no less bitter.

He took three strides back towards the bench press, and Arya couldn't restrain herself. She leapt forward and had an arm half-outstretched towards him when she thought better of it. "Gendry..."

"Hmm?" he grunted, neither patronizingly nor entirely amiably. He sat down at the bench. He wasn't looking at her.

She blinked, swallowing. "Say something."

"What do you want me to say?" he asked softly. She would have paid a veteran's career salary to hear any hint of color or emotion in his voice.

"Anything. You're not dead. Talk to me."

This time, he did look at her. Something _was _swirling behind his eyes, but she couldn't have differentiated between fury or affection. "I don't... there's not much I could say that anyone would want to hear."

"Whatever you have, I more than want to hear it," Arya said. _I just want to hear you. I want to help you_.

He turned away from her again, hunched over his knees. From behind, his shoulders were visibly stiff as boards, arms yet quaking ever slightly from the exercises. A drop of sweat slid down his temple and dripped to the floor between his legs. As her eyes slid over him, his back twitched irritably. Whatever was running through his head was his knowledge and his alone; his own demons to conquer, to ward off, to curse. Which was exactly her problem. She wanted nothing more than to go to him and wrap him up in her arms, hold back those horrors from whatever they were doing to him. Nevertheless, something held her back, something in the set of his shoulders and the rigidity of his stance.

"I don't need my hand held."

She had been so focused on watching him that it was almost a surprise when he spoke. Swallowing, she shook her head, even though he could not see it with his back turned. "What hand needs to be held? You're not weak, I'm not saying you are. You're bottling it up inside, I can see it overwhelming you!"

Gendry sighed, a great heaving breath that lifted his torso up and back down on the bench. He made as if to lean back for another set and then halted, shaking his head forlornly as he looked down at his throwing arm. He flexed his elbow, cringing as if in pain. "I am fine. I have always made it alone."

If she had been closer, she would have punched him. "Seven hells... you're not alone, Gendry! I am standing right here for you. I came down here for you. What do you think holding it in is going to help with?"

His body shuddered, but his voice was calm. "I have no father."

Arya watched him, helpless but to watch his broken form, equal to her breaking heart at seeing him so courageously defiant in the face of this startling secret. A hundred different courses of action for her came to mind, half of them being to turn around and let Gendry deal with what was going on by himself. Ashamed at the mere thought, however, she dug in her heels against the safe road for herself and remained where she was. Watching his hunched, courageous, torn form, she remembered the feeling of his arms wrapped around her and the safety he had unexpectedly provided. It was not something that she thought she deserved, but it was something she knew he deserved. He wanted to face the emotional tidal wave washing over him alone, to embrace it by ravaging his body with strenuous exertion and drown it beneath a suffusion of sweat and exhaustion.

She wouldn't let him. He wasn't alone. Whatever had passed between them the previous night, a line had been crossed. Gendry would not be abandoned; not by her, never. Everything he had ever told her explained that he had faced the hardships of his life alone and never blinked at the challenge. Now, this was not something that he should face without company.

And she was his company. She was his. She would not leave him to this alone.

Summoning fortitude, she made her legs walk forward, into the tenuous cloud of emotion. Around the bench she went, until she was standing before him. He didn't look up into her eyes, but she sank instead to her knees.

"Gendry," she whispered. Tentatively, she reached out with both of her arms, completely aware that at any moment someone undesired may walk through the weight room door and see them. Taking his face in her hands, she lifted until their eyes were on a plane. "Open up. I'm not going away."

For a few long moments, their eye contact was silent and empathic. Then, she felt the muscles in his cheeks stand out and his jaw tighten. As emotionless as his voice had been before, the low, angry growl more than evened the gap. "That. Old. _Drunk?_" He was shaking by the time the final word slipped off his lips. He did not push Arya away, but in standing her hands fell away from his face. Pacing several feet away, he made as if to punch a wall, and instead swung back around to face her. The blue eyes she thought were dazzling blazed in anguish. "I told myself my father was dead, all my life. I told myself that if he was alive he would have come for me, for my mother. It was just fate that landed in me in that gods damned orphanage, and fate I could live with."

Arya remained on her heels, watching him, afraid that if she spoke now she would break apart the fragile opening she'd pried into his armor. His body language was erratic; every few seconds he would make as if to punch or hurl something before stopping. Had he been anyone else she would have gone as quick as possible. He was Gendry, though. He needed her. She wouldn't back away.

"It's true," he commented bitterly, his hands digging into his hair. "Of course it's true. Of course he's my fucking father. Of course. Lies all my life, I've been telling myself, lies that it will be all right in the morning, that someone is coming for me, that I have a life beyond what I can see in front of me. Now _one _fucking truth, and it's the worst truth you could tell me. It's the last truth I could possibly want. It's the only truth I have. My fucking father is Robert fucking Baratheon."

She bit her lip as he paused, glaring at a wall and heaving for breath. "I'm sorry."

He glanced at her only long enough for her to see the hurt in him. Shaking his head, he turned and threaded his hands behind his head as he resumed the pace. "Twenty-four _fucking _years he left me in Flea Bottom. _Alone_! I remember his name, I remember his picture, I remember the way he fucking played the game. I grew up watching him, idolizing him until I learned what a fuck he really was. I lived fucking _four _blocks away and he never acknowledged me. He never came for me. _He never left me a fucking cent!_" He paused long enough to grit his teeth, clamp his jaws shut, and emit a muffled scream. "I could have lived in a penthouse. I could have gotten help in school. I could have had a _father_!" He stopped pacing and dropped where he stood, falling to sit on the mats across from her, glaring at her with eyes that were half-fearful. "But I didn't have any of that. I didn't have shit. I had nothing, not a single word from _my dad_, because he owed more of himself to fucking alcohol than his son."

A laugh tore itself from his lips. "What is wrong with me? What did I do? What did my mother do that made him hate me? He lived _four blocks __**away from me**_! Why didn't he come? I needed him. Why wasn't he there? Why didn't he love. His. _Fucking. Son_?!"

Arya was certain her heart broke. His eyes were no longer on her, but his face was quivering, as dark as blood, and as she watched him a single tear escaped his eye, rolling halfway down his cheek before he smudged it to death with a furious thumb. She felt tears pool in her own eyes, and looked towards the ceiling to push them away. She didn't want to cry—not here, not in front of him when he was baring his soul and she needed to be strong.

She dared to look at him after a moment, only to see his head hanging tiredly. His voice was weaker than before, spent. "How did they find out? How did they get my DNA? Don't they need legal consent to test it?"

"I don't know," she replied. "My father will find out. Rest assured, Gendry, they will pay."

"I don't want them to pay," Gendry stated. He ran a hand down his face and threw his hair and looked over her shoulder evasively. "I don't want any more trouble." He shrugged, and staggered uneasily to his feet. "My father is dead. He has been for twenty-four years. This changes nothing."

Before he could move away, she stood up and rushed towards him. Seizing him around the middle, she embraced him as hard as he could, pressing her face into his warm, sweaty chest. It smelled incredibly of him, a warm, mixed mess of spring winds and sweet fire; she couldn't delve far enough into it to suit her liking. He tensed at first, but after a moment relaxed into her arms, tentatively wrapping his own around her after a hesitation.

"You're nothing like him, Gendry," she said, and she meant it from the bottom of her heart. She remembered Robert, the best friend of her father for a portion of his life, the owner of the Monarchs, the scourging drunk of the King's Landing tabloids. "He was loud and confrontational and dishonorable and despicable. You're quiet but not soft-spoken. You defend what you think is right but don't pick a fight you shouldn't. You're honest and courageous and strong and tough. He was a fat stag, but you're a stubborn bull. You never let up when you know something's wrong, no matter who you're up against. You're gentle and sweet and righteous." She raised her eyes enough to catch his gaze. As close to him as she was, she had to look straight up and him straight down for their blue-grey storm to clash.

"You're Gendry," she added, almost as an obvious afterthought. "You can't be him. You're too busy being you."

The change in his expression could have been anything from tranquility to subtle disbelief, but the weak smile told her that, at least in part, she had broken through his anger enough to cheer at least a part of his spirit up. He turned his head away to cough lightly, and released his hold on her slightly. Reluctantly, she loosened her arms as well, but kept her hands tightly locked gripping his sweaty shirt. They only pulled apart enough to fit a hand or two of space between them, but neither of their necks were quite as craned as they watched one another.

Gendry opened his mouth and closed it again before finally speaking. "Is everything I've just accomplished for nothing, now? Did this just ruin everything I have?"

"Of course not," Arya snapped. He deserved a punch just for suggesting it, but she stayed her hand. "You think you got where you are because Robert Baratheon conceived you? No, you got here because you can pitch. Don't be stupid and say otherwise. My father is not that kind of man. _You_ are not that kind of man."

He did not appear convinced. "The fans... the announcers," he groaned, flinching. "The media... they're all going to hawk over this thing. It's as good as the truth to them..."

"Dad will do what he can with legal," Arya said, squeezing the muscles of his back. "All you can do is pitch. You can't worry about what people think. But you never have before. Why start now? You can't hide from it in here forever." She gestured around the weight room, forced to detach her arms to do so, and alternated to smoothing his grimy shirt over his chest. After a moment, she tipped a finger under his chin. "I'm in this with you, okay?"

"I don't..." He closed his eyes and tried again. "I don't want you to take fire, too." Another bout of hesitation delayed the rest of his statement. "Arya, after last night, I... I'm not entirely sure what we are... but... it might not be a great idea to be around me..."

"What the hell does that mean?" Still encircled in his arms, she took hers off of him and folded them over her chest. All of her concern morphed instantaneously to panic and unease. "Just because some bitch writes an article accusing your team of things that surround you, you don't want to be with anymore?"

He took a moment to respond, but some of her anxiety dissipated when his arms tightened around her. His thinking face was in full effect, but she did not feel like teasing him about it in the emotional intensity of the moment. "You have no idea how much I want to be with you, Arya. I'm not sure that keeping us secret is going to get any easier, though." His laugh this time was slightly less dry. "I'm not really sure what we're keeping secret."

Her hands returned to curl themselves in his shirt. "Us is what we have to keep secret. But just because it's secret doesn't mean you're alone. I'm with you. Don't forget that, Gendry."

She watched in his eyes as he mulled over her words, watched his ever-tentative nod as the smile slipped slowly off his lips. "It's still..." He took a deep breath. "I'm having trouble believing it. I'm having trouble accepting it. If he was my fucking father, why didn't he ever _say _anything? Was he _that _much of a bastard, or did he just hate me with everything he had?"

"If he hated you," Arya said, and she dared to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, "then he was even more stupid than you." He smiled weakly, with a half glance upwards at her hands. His hair was surprisingly soft. Was it really only last night that she had touched him for the first time? She felt as though she had been destined from birth to summon that annoyingly contagious smirk to his face—something she would admit to no living soul, ever.

He reached up, at length, and took both of her hands in his. Bringing them down to his lips, he brushed each with a kiss before holding them between their bodies. "I'm glad you're around to tell me I'm stupid. Even when I'm not." He looked down, at their hands, and then past them. "I need time... to deal with this. I hope you understand... my entire world just flipped upside down. Some things about my life, I don't even know what to think anymore. So I apologize in advance for any mistakes or stupid moments I make in the near future, okay? It's just... I need to figure some stuff out. I'm sorry, but... I don't know what to think."

"I'm not going anywhere," she vowed, squeezing his hands briefly.

"Gendry."

They let go of each others' hands like lightning. Arya hopped a step back, but Gendry simply turned towards the door; his face might as well have been stone. Arya, on the other hand, could feel the heat draining from her feet as all of her body's blood convened urgently in her cheeks.

Robb stood half around the corner, one hand around the door as he made it clear he was just leaning in. He was looking directly at Gendry, obviously deliberately; Arya was the last thing he was looking at, to be sure. Whatever thoughts were passing through his head were his own; his face rivaled Gendry's own for impassiveness. "Luwin wants us all in the conference room. Scouting report on the Night Watch before batting practice." Robb hesitated, the slightest sliver of concern cracking his mask. "You all right?"

"Enough," Gendry replied, nodding. Without another word, he walked to the door and slipped past Robb. He glanced nowhere close to Arya on the way out, but as she continued to stare in mortification at her brother, she found she didn't mind in the slightest.

Once he was gone, Robb's eyes slid to her. There was no accusation; there was no anything; it was a straight glare, unintelligible. She opened her mouth quickly to blurt something, anything to dispel whatever notions were running through his mind—notions most likely close to the truth, which was beside the point—but before she could get out a word both of his hands shot up, staying her voice.

"Tread lightly, Arya," he said. His voice was a combination of hope, concern, and warning, his head tilted to one side and giving a near-imperceptible head shake. "Just tread lightly."

She was so surprised that she didn't get out a reply before he vanished, leaving her standing alone in the bright, silent weight room. Running his words once again through her head left her no closer to figuring out why she was not drowning in excuses and explanations in front of one, two, maybe even three brothers. Then again, maybe Gendry was being roasted alive as she stood there thinking. She shivered, and wished the contradicting sweaty warmth of Gendry's body was still pressed against her.

An hour later, after she'd occupied her familiar seat behind the Direwolves dugout and still sat waiting for batting practice to begin, she was still mulling over Robb's words, no closer to a definitive idea of his entire message. Her lip probably had puncture holes from how many times she'd bitten it. Ned Stark hadn't called her, which was a merciful indication that he hadn't yet realized she'd gone against his wishes and spoken to Gendry first. When _that _shit hit the fan... well, it would be infinitely better than Robb even hinting at a drop of what he may or may not have seen in the weight room.

"Westeros to Arya..."

She blinked and looked up, half-starting in her seat and driving her elbow painfully into the armrest. Yelping, she jumped a second time, rubbing at her joint furiously as Jon Snow leaned against the railing next to the dugout and laughed.

"Shut the hell up," she growled at him, cringing at the sharp ache that persisted. More painful than her elbow was the realization that he had snuck up on her... while trying to do no such thing.

It took him a moment to calm down, peering up at her and sweeping his black locks from his face with a hand and a beaming grin. "I can't remember the last time I got that sort of reaction out of you. You must have been twelve."

"Shut up," she repeated, slumping in her seat with a pout she knew was unbecoming. "I was thinking."

"About what? Your closer?" She sat bolt upright. _How the fuck is everyone _doing _that? _"Understandable. I'm pretty sure all of Winterfell is in uproar over that stupid argument, even if they're not obvious about it."

"How do you know about it?" she asked through her scowl.

Jon quirked an eyebrow at her. "Arya, I'm relatively certain that Ghost and Nymeria know about that story by now. The world is buzzing with it, and almost no one gives a flipping fuck about it. North of the Neck, at least. I talked to Mormont just ten minutes ago; aside from being upset he got quoted in such an unsavory piece, he said that Dad was the most honorable man he's ever met." Arya, cross over being startled and having her thoughts tossed between Robb's strange responses and Gendry's rattled shock, merely grunted. Jon peered at her quizzically. "Robert Baratheon, though... is that part true?"

She nodded. "Gendry's..." _What am I doing? Stop!_ Jon raised an eyebrow; she had to move quickly. "I don't think he's taking it spectacularly." Not precisely the truth, but not a lie. "But, then again, I don't know if he could be expected to; he's never known his father. He's just found out that the man could afford to have been in his life the entire time, and most likely chose not to."

To her relief, Jon seemed to accept her knowledge without curiosity about how she acquired the information. As he did so, she realized that it was very nice to see her brother, and she bounced out of her seat to rush the short distance and wrap her arms around his lean shoulders. He chuckled, and return the embrace before she quickly returned to her seat.

"What are doing out so early?"

Jon shrugged. "Half hoping to catch you, which I did. Half hoping to catch Robb before the game starts, which I'm sure I'll do. He texted me and told me he's not catching today, so I won't have a chance to talk to him behind the plate." He leaned against the rail, watching her appraisingly. "How you doing, little wolf? How's your summer?"

Despite all of the frantic worries bouncing around her skull, she couldn't help but grin at the favorite brother. "It's going pretty well, actually. I'm having a lot of fun watching the team this year."

"Don't miss school?"

She scoffed. "I dread going back. Maybe I should transfer. King's Landing is _awful_."

Jon chuckled. "I've heard that from some people. A lot of my teammates are from down south. Still, if it works for you, it works for you. I guess you're not one of those people. You do seem rather North, born and raised."

"Yes," she answered quietly. His words snagged on something in her mind, and didn't let go. "I don't know that I hate the South, though, just because I love the North. It's different, sure, but King's Landing is really what I don't like."

"Be that as it may," Jon said, "I don't know if I ever see you living in the South."

Arya shrugged. "I think I could. If I had the right reason."

Jon regarded her wryly and then grunted lightly. "Well, I couldn't. I was born there, but I hate it every time we fly south of the Neck. I was born for winter, the same as you."

She flinched as he spoke. All of what Edric had told her and Robb about Jon hit her in the face as she beheld her brother and his cold Stark eyes. The secrets and the unknowns... gazing at Jon, she wondered what he actually knew about his mother—as far as she knew, Ned Stark had been as tightlipped about Jon's mother to him as their father had been to all of his children—and what he would never know. Jon had inherited their father's features completely; except perhaps for the touches of gray creeping into Ned Stark's hairline and Jon's yet unmarred youth, they looked identical enough to be clones. None of whatever Jon's mother's features had been squeaked through the classic Stark appearance, yielding no clue whatsoever of his mother's identity.

The gripping focus that had so guiltily torn her concentration from Gendry the previous evening reasserted itself in her mind, intensifying around every desperate scrap of information about Jon's unknown origins. Seeing him standing before her, she couldn't hold back her irking curiosity any longer, her furious questions of what Jon really knew. "Jon—"

"Snow!" She swore under her breath as Robb stalked out of the dugout in his practice uniform. A wide beam was on his face as he regarded their darker brother. "What the hell are you doing over here? Don't you know you need the express written consent of major league baseball before you let your mug anywhere near quality baseball players?"

Arya and Jon both turned towards the Direwolves' captain, but Arya's eyes traveled farther, to where Gendry climbed wearily up the dugout steps behind Robb. Her fear at what Robb may or may not have lectured Gendry on based upon the weight room observance dissipated when Gendry offered her a small, comforting grin. It was gone the moment his eyes slid casually from hers, but the trust and gratitude behind their eye contact suggested that Robb hadn't said a single word.

Curious, to be sure, but she was nevertheless thankful of the miracle.

"Never fear, then," Jon retorted, turning and crossing his arms despite the familial smirk he adopted. "I see no players of that caliber anywhere near." The two brothers embraced, a rough, crushing hug that might have registered on the Richter scale. Through their laughs, Jon seemed to notice Gendry standing awkwardly but strongly in the background. The smile vanished; Stark ice was back in the eyes, but it was not a biting frost. "I take it back, Robb, there's one ballplayer around, at least."

"I'm Gendry," Gendry said simply, shaking Jon's proffered hand briefly but powerfully. "You must be Jon."

"Ah," Jon said with false bravado, elbowing Robb. "I see my reputation precedes me. As does yours to you, I've found."

Arya watched the muscles in Gendry's face and arms tense, and had to seize conscious control of her body to prevent her from reaching out to him. "My reputation is what I show on the ball field, I hope. That's the person I am, what you see out there."

Jon glanced between Gendry and his brother for a moment. "Of course. What else would it be?"

"Nothing," Robb said quickly, stepping in.

Never before had Arya seen Gendry give Robb anything but deference. In the space of that moment, though, the glare he sent her brother nearly made the eldest Stark take a step backwards. "Please don't coddle me," Gendry murmured, low and strangely dangerous as he addressed Robb. "Please. That is exactly what will happen from everybody else in the world after this. I can't have it from you. I want you to see me as a player, not... whatever it says I am."

Arya's heart broke a little more, and she wanted more than ever to wrap her arms around him and hold him close. Her Gendry, usually so strong and resilient, clearly in need of mental respite yet fighting to be accepted despite the grip the media would soon be sinking into him. As much as she wanted to hold him, though, doing so in front of two brothers—albeit after Robb's surprisingly nonexistent reaction to supposedly finding them in a compromised position—was definitely a bad idea.

She was surprised, though, when Jon clapped Gendry on the arm. Most of the ice had vanished; it was almost as if Gendry's statement had relieved the introduction suspicions that Jon seemingly pulled from nowhere upon any new meeting. "No worries, friend. I know Ned Stark wouldn't put any stock at all in you unless you have heart, and you have heart. Whether you're a competitor or just one tough bastard, you belong. I know my father well enough to know that."

"I appreciate that," Gendry replied gratefully, after a moment. He glanced slightly at Arya and she grinned at him supportively before he turned back to Jon. "I've looked forward to taking you on. Arya and Robb have told me a lot about you."

"Oh, yeah?" Jon glanced at her. A margin of the ice was back. Arya recognized the curl to her half-brother's face: challenge. "All good, I hope. No doubts about your heart, but I've actually been itching to see if your fastball is as good as they say."

Gendry's arms crossed themselves over his chest. "Good enough to get most. On a normal day."

When had this turned into a pissing contest? Jon licked his lips. "How do you like Winterfell? Everything around you... satisfying?"

"So far," Gendry answered. Arya glared at Jon, wondering what he was doing. "I like it here. I wouldn't mind spending a while here."

"There are a lot of opportunities out there for you, man," Jon said. "The Night Watch could really use you. Tell me... how do you feel about making lifelong commitments?"

If Arya had been drinking something, it would have been sprayed over all three men. After recovering from her shock, she couldn't tell what was worse: that Jon had actually made the comment or that all three, including him, seemed to have missed the meaning she had taken it for instantly. All she saw where they stood was Jon interrogating the man she had just happened to enter a secret relationship with. Then again... what did Jon know? What did _Robb_ know?

"I keep my options open," Gendry replied safely.

Jon watched him, finally nodding. "That's good, as a young player." The ice disappeared from Jon's gaze, warmth returning as he slapped Gendry on the arm again. "No worries, seriously. Your father's your father. Nothing can change that, but it doesn't define you. I'll see you on the other side of the pitch."

Her half-brother gave Robb a meaningful look and smiled endearingly, as he always did, at Arya, before venturing off. As soon as he was gone, she released a pent-up breath that she wished she hadn't have held, but she had been genuinely nervous about the direction the conversation had steered, no matter how innocent it had turned out. Gendry smiled at her again, this time deeper and warmer if no less weary. From the blank, innocent look Robb gave her, and then the one he gave Gendry, she wasn't sure if she hadn't imagined him walking in on their clasped hands in the weight room. And anything else he may have seen. Nevertheless, it was long after Gendry and Robb had moved away that she trusted herself to move without either blurting something she would regret or touching Gendry in a way that, in front of her brother, she would also regret.

It was a relief, in the end, that they were gone. She noted to herself that they could never risk anything where they could be seen together in an incriminating way—especially by her team captain brother. Also, she could never allow Gendry to speak with Jon, innocent questions or interrogative questions. Ever again.

That night, Gendry pitched with a one-run lead in the ninth. It was a one-two-three inning for his thirteenth save. He struck out two of the three hitters he faced, one of which was her beloved half-brother. On the way back to the Watch dugout, after swinging through two of Gendry's fastballs and watching a strike three slider drop by uncontested, Jon Snow stared at the pitching mound as if trying to figure out what had happened.

Recalling the comment Jon had made about the one who would steal her heart, Arya had to raise both hands to her face to hide her smile.


	15. Chapter 14

**14**

The media backlash was mildly discouraging. When Gendry picked up his phone to call Arya after the first game against the Night Watch, he found six voicemails and eighteen missed calls, presumably on a cellular device whose number should not have in any way been divulged without his permission. What was more, Luwin forcibly forbade reporters in the locker room postgame because of the sheer numbers that stormed the place looking to ask questions of Gendry related to Targaryen's article. Even from the safety of his cubby, while a few of his teammates shot him reproachful looks aside many more who were sympathetic and understanding, Gendry was more convinced he was about to be assaulted by the paparazzi than questioned by sports' journalists. Edric, surprisingly enough, flanked him happily on the way into the locker room as if he expected to have to bodily defend the much larger man. Gendry reconsidered whether or not he could like the center fielder.

As it was, being marched into Ned Stark's office alone in the clubhouse was not a terrifically better option than the mad reporting mob. Despite Luwin's assurances that the team's owner simply wanted to discuss the situation and offer an apology, Gendry felt quite anxious. Scenes of daughter-retaliatory lectures—despite the odds against that—and parentage accusations filled his mind as he knocked on the door, the voice that answered him offering no clue as to whether he was about to be flayed or frozen.

Ned Stark did not wear his usual grin, true, but he also did not appear angry. His eyes were grim and cold, standing at his desk with his hands clasped behind his back, but that was nothing new. As Gendry entered quietly, the man who had signed him gestured stiffly to the chair across from his desk. "Please."

Gendry sat, wary of Ned Stark's face. It was remarkable how alike Arya and her father were. Admittedly, he was far less attracted to the steely features of Ned than he was to those very similar in his daughter, but, nevertheless, it would not have been difficult to pick them as daughter in father in a swarm of like comparisons. The prolonged silence made him uneasy, beneath the eye of one whose stare was so cold, and simply maintaining eye contact seemed to exude a defiance and indifference he didn't want to convey; excepting that, Gendry did not want to be the one to speak first.

Just before he was about to drop his eyes and force himself to say something, Ned Stark cleared his throat. "I want to offer my sincere apology for the death of your father, Gendry, and also my apology that you learned of him in this cruel way."

Gendry wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting Ned Stark to say, but it wasn't that. "I... thank you, sir, but there's nothing for you to apologize for."

"There may be, Gendry," the owner pronounced grimly. Even for the cold man, Gendry couldn't remember his stare appearing so dark, before. "My comment made up a part of that story. And I... confess that the first time I saw you, I was struck by how closely you resembled a Baratheon."

Gendry sat back in his chair, dumbstruck for a hard moment. _What?_ His eyes darted desperately for a mirror around the room, only to find there was none. _What do I look like? How do I look like _him_? _The last time he had checked, he had assuredly weighed less than the three hundred and fifty pounds Robert Baratheon must have been packing. Nevertheless, the admission that he had been recognized so long before...

"Why didn't you tell me?" He blinked, and became aware that he was fixing Ned Stark with a glare he knew, from personal experience, he reserved for only the most unfortunate of people who accomplished the rare feat of incurring his wrath. There was also no mistaking the sightless anger that had sneaked into his voice.

For his worth, Ned Stark did not flinch. "I took it as a mere happenstance. You have to understand, to out and say something of that variety would just make me seem unstable. After all, Robert had just been in his accident. He was at the hospital in critical condition. I myself simply thought I was worried for my friend, seeing his reflection everywhere I went."

"You should've told me," Gendry heard himself growl.

His opposite hardly blinked. "Probably. But I had no reason to, or so that's what I told myself. In any case, that is what I apologize for. I don't know what difference it could have made, but if I could go back I would."

After a few long moments of breathing deeply, Gendry squelched his rage. Ned Stark spoke logically. The man—his _father_—would never have been thought to father someone like him, a scruffy, soft-spoken but formidable street lad. Thinking _that_ brought something even more puzzling, perplexing, and irritating to mind, that Gendry had not considered in full up until that moment.

"Robert has a wife," he stated, and he registered the tension seizing in the body of Arya's father as the latter broke their eye contact. "My mother... she was a mistress?"

"Likely," Ned Stark replied, looking back to him with a steely resolve Gendry had to admire. "I'm afraid there's no way to be sure. Your mother..." He left the word hang, quickly sweeping it away by continuing, "And Robert's death leaves no way to conclusively find out how they came together." After a moment, Ned Stark spread his arms apart. "I can, if you wish, look into it. I would be more than happy to, under the circumstances."

Gendry let his eyes fall to Ned Stark's desk, feeling his heart sink. His mind rushed through everything he already knew about Robert Baratheon, and he shook his head, connecting the dots between excessive alcohol and fame. "Don't. Please. It was a common thing, wasn't it? He slept around."

One of the Direwolves' owner's eyebrows drifted upwards a millimeter or two in impression before reverting to its original and unusually stony state. "It was never much of a secret. I honestly cannot say why or how his marriage to Cersei lasted as long as it did. Their children, I suppose. You know Joffrey, I assume..." Gendry did—the blonde second baseman couldn't tell a baseball from a butterfly—but he said nothing. Ned Stark nodded as if receiving assent, and continued, "I couldn't actually say if there was ever love between them. When I met her, they were already married, and they were nothing but cold to each other." He cut off abruptly, his face darkening considerably more, if that was at all possible. From the way Ned Stark's eyes settled on him, Gendry may have thought it was directed partially at him, though he was sure he'd done nothing to earn the ire of the icy glare.

"So I was the result of an extramarital affair," he summarized.

Ned Stark nodded, but the ice in his eyes remained. "Of some sort. Robert liked flings, or so I gathered. Regardless, I'm sorry. I can't help but feel responsible for at least some of the things you're obviously feeling. I was very glad to see you fight through them, pitching tonight."

Gendry breathed deeply to keep from blurting his immediate thoughts. In truth, more than once during the game, sitting in the bullpen, he had nearly lost the brittle hold of himself he had seized in Arya's presence. Hurt, betrayal, anger all threatened to consume him, and only a very firm image of Arya's pleading face and his own intractable will not to give in to weakness managed to keep his mindset together. He had firmly breathed a sigh of relief when he got the first out, and even a triumphant one when he struck out Jon Snow, who had seemed both as icy as his father and friendly as Robb on a first introduction. In all, however, it had been a battle for him to get through the game, and even after, with it over, Gendry could not honestly say the burden had been lifted.

He tried to say something to Ned Stark, to convey his feelings, but both the frosty aura surrounding the man and their setting held him back. He really did have to watch his tongue around Starks, these days; the youngest daughter included. After consideration, he settled on murmuring, "I won't let this interfere with my play, sir."

A hint of warmth returned to his boss's voice, if not expression. "I would expect nothing less out of you, Gendry. Is there anything you need, that I can help you with? I wanted to let you know that I'm having my legal branch investigate Daenarys Targaryen with the intent to sue, possibly for libel on behalf of the claims against me. If I can, I will find out her source over... I won't give it to you personally, but I will try to find out how they discovered... about you."

"How did they get my DNA?"

Ned Stark shrugged, offering the slightest sympathetic wince. "It could have been rather easy, for a sneak, nosy slime. You travel thousands of miles a week. A glass you drank from, a hair left on a jersey... you'd be surprised at the creepy things a professional owner hears about during his tenure."

Gendry shifted, wondering how deranged and desperate a person must have been to sift through his dirty laundry looking for spare hairs. With no lack of eagerness, he pushed the thought away, threading his fingers and glancing distractedly around the room. "What was he like? Robert, I mean."

He didn't look at Ned Stark, but the man's pause before his reply suggested surprise. "Well... when he was young, Robert was dashing. Fearless to the point of idiocy. He spoke loudly and made a lot of jokes, at his own expense and others, and generally most people liked him. His teammates loved him. Ever since we met, I loved him like another brother." The older man stopped abruptly, as if the following sentences were not something he wanted to say. "Older... Robert changed. He drank more, worked less. He was still loud, with his raunchy jokes, but he wasn't the same, happy person he had been. There was a darkness over him."

"Why?"

He and Ned Stark looked at each other at the same time. Whatever warmth may have returned in the throe of the owner's memory, it vanished in the wake of steely cold. "Something happened. To all of us. It ruined some lives, irreparably changed others. But that's a tale I'll never tell again. In the very least not to you, lad. I'm sorry."

"It was that horrible?"

Ned Stark ignored the question. "Robert was a jovial youth with the world at his fingertips, and, unfortunately, like many professional athletes and other superstars, once the dream was shattered he sank into a lethargic monotony that never really ceased for him. I was helpless and very sorry to see him let himself go the way he did, but we had grown apart and I had my own business to worry about. There was nothing I could do."

_Wasn't there? _Gendry thought. _You could have been there. For him. The way no one was for me. Am I going to end up like him, then?_

It was an unfair thought; Ned Stark was not his father, and could not be compared. Perhaps he _should _have been there for Robert, but Gendry did not know what cataclysmic event had thrust them apart while apparently shifting his father's life for the worse. From Ned's skirting of the event and his own exhaustion with the trying day, he didn't push it.

"Is there anything further, sir?" he asked quietly.

"I don't think so," Ned Stark said, his face returned to its normal, stony expressionlessness. He reached down to brush a paper on his desk and Gendry began to rise. "Oh, yes, actually, one more thing." Gendry finished his ascent to his feet so that he was actually looking an inch or two down on Ned Stark as the older man continued, "King's Landing is the next stop, once the Night Watch series concludes. Under the circumstances... I am willing to grant you leave until after the all-star break."

He didn't even consider it, scoffing before it had really even registered. "Absolutely not, sir. I won't miss any time because of this. Especially not must-win games."

"Hardly must-win," Ned replied, grimacing good-naturedly. "We're comfortable in our division lead."

"The Monarchs are at the top of the _league_!" Gendry stated vehemently. "The best team this year. We're on a streak, yes, but if we want to win big—playoffs big—then we _have_ to compete with that team. I am not going to sit that out. I'm going to be there to take it to 'em good."

Ned Stark surveyed him carefully. "I respect that. That's the same way I would be. But King's Landing is, more or less, the Lannisters' backyard, and not a far cry from Casterly Rock these days in being described as the Lannister palace. Everyone there knows you came from those streets, and everyone, because of this article, now thinks you somehow cheated them. It's not going to be pretty for you."

Gendry did his best to mimic the older man's frozen and rocky stare. "I don't care. Send what they have at me, I am _not _missing those games. Thanks for the offer, but I don't need it."

To his surprise, Ned Stark's face cracked into the first grin of the meeting, an admiring glance that barely broke through the stone. "I'm actually glad to hear that. You are undoubtedly Robert's son, let me tell you. I'll let Luwin know. It was his suggestion, but he was even more convinced of your refusal than I was before I asked."

"Glad I didn't disappoint," Gendry said flatly.

"Well," Ned continued, moving behind his desk to the chair. "I'll be making the journey to King's Landing with you. If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to come to me. I respect you fighting through this, but you're not alone, and I won't think less of you if you need assistance."

"Thank you, sir."

He was in the midst of turning to leave when Ned Stark added, also as an offhand comment. "Oh, and Arya's going, too."

Gendry's steps were surprisingly fluid in their abrupt halt and his voice manageably steady. "Oh. I'm sure she'll enjoy that."

"Yes," Ned Stark agreed. The grin was gone. "She was very concerned about you, I know. If you don't want to take something to me or Robb, I'm sure you can take it to her. She's a surprisingly kind-hearted person when you get past her attitude."

"I've noticed," Gendry said safely, and with a quick farewell he slipped his way from the office.

_Arya going to King's Landing? With the team?_ She hadn't told him, but, as he learned as soon as he retrieved his phone from his locker, he discovered that she herself hadn't known before a late-game decision between herself and her father, which, by her pleasurably-phrased text message, had been acquiesced to only after a very great bit of wrangling on her part.

He wasn't sure how he felt about it. She had not been on a road trip with the team while he was on it, and certainly not before they had become whatever it was they had become. It was a great relief that he wouldn't have to go another three days without seeing her—an interestingly great relief—and he had little fear of distraction, since she had been around ever since he realized that he had feelings for her and he had been able to pitch completely fine. On the other hand, what kind of time would they be able to spend with each other on the road? And would they not be running the risk of having someone discover them, if they did spend moments together? Especially with the media deployed in battalions...

She may have not been thinking in the best interests of all parties. But he found himself caring more that she was going than he did that it may be awkward having her close while acting as though nothing was between them.

The last two games of the Night Watch series went rather quickly, a split pair that advanced them another game in the division. Gendry did not pitch, nor did he see Arya in the interim. For a relationship that almost wasn't, he felt weak for missing her as much as he did in that time. He did, however, have a number of conversations with Jon Snow; the man was not as friendly as Robb, looked nothing the same, but he did have a casual frankness that Gendry admired and could have grown to appreciate. Weighing on his mind through those days was also what Robb may or may not have seen in the weight room when he had walked in on Gendry and Arya standing far too close, holding hands. Whatever the eldest Stark brother _had _seen, however, he suspiciously kept to himself. Towards Gendry, at least, Robb was the same cheerful roommate he'd always been; Gendry wasn't sure whether to be grateful or tense, but he rolled with the tide and acted as though it had been nothing at all.

The next time he saw Arya was at the airport in the late afternoon. It was only in passing, since she stood with a backpack next to her father and Gendry rolled past with Robb and Jory to board the plane, but they shared a momentary smile that he felt he could have given no one else in the world. He also noticed, for a fact, that they managed to drop the expression only a half-second before Ned Stark also saw him and offered a helping grin.

On the plane, Arya sat eleven rows behind him and one seat to the right, and for the first half of the flight it was a continuous effort not to look at her at all. Then he thought that it might be considered suspicious if he didn't look at her, and turned around once to do so for good measure, only to find her asleep. Finally deciding that he was being completely idiotic, as she no-doubt would have told him had she been in any position to do so, he settled in for the duration to try and get some rest, as she had done.

The assault on Gendry Waters by King's Landing began almost as soon as they landed. A number of people in the airport noticed who it was that were disembarking and making their way to a bus at the terminal, and they were solidly vocal in how they felt about the Winterfell Direwolves. Robb arranged for Mikken, Desmond, and Hallis to flank Gendry, but Gendry was taller than all three of them and their shield was woefully unhelpful. A number of particularly venomous names were dealt to him, surprising him with their public brutality. _Well, it's King's Landing. Everyone who lives here is fucked up, what did you expect?_

Even the hotel attendants when they arrived, just as the sun was setting, seemed turned the wrong way by him or the team as they checked in and made their way to their rooms. A number of reporters actually tried to sever him from the pack in the lobby and were barely put off by the wall of Direwolves separating them from Gendry. He made no move to avoid them, out of pure stubbornness, but the last thing he wanted was an encounter. Luckily, they didn't pursue, and when Robb swung the door shut after them in the hotel room he let out a sigh of relief.

"This fucking sucks," he told his captain, falling backwards on the nearest of the room's two beds.

"I believe you. Anything I can help with?"

"Shoot everyone you see carrying a notebook or pen," Gendry answered, completely serious, but Robb laughed it off. At least no one had tried to shoot _him_, yet.

Luwin gave them the rest of the night off. Some of the braver and more nondescript team members went out on the town to see King's Landing. Aside from the occasional spring training fling, it wasn't often that the interleague Direwolves made it down to the capitol. Robb went down to the communal room off the lobby, but went so far as to actually suggest Gendry remain in the room. Gendry didn't blame his captain; he more than agreed, actually, but it still was lonely, lounging for the evening in his room by himself. Never owning a TV did not exactly make him hell-bent on watching one. All of the sports channels were still busy talking about him anyway; he couldn't turn the damn thing off fast enough.

Only an hour into his imprisonment, he decided that he needed a walk. Resigned to the fact that he could only do so on the few floors of hotel around him, he mournfully set out in his worn jeans and a blank shirt, hands dug deep into his pockets as he climbed the stairwell as far as he could before setting off down hallways until he found another stair downward.

It was on his second circuit, pushing down onto one of the floors the team was occupying, when Arya burst into the stairwell just as he was about to leave it.

She was clad in sweat pants and a loose-fitting sweatshirt, both articles hanging off of her in a way that made her look even smaller than she was. Her brown hair lay tousled, as if left unattended for no better reason than that it wouldn't cooperate, rimming her face with disorder. Only a few feet away, she froze, staring into his eyes silently as she let the door slide closed with a muffled _thud_ behind her.

Stopping himself from embracing her on the spot was not something he wanted to do, but a stiff glance at the door reminded him that it would not do for someone unfriendly—or, perhaps, even friendly—to walk in on them in such a position.

Arya, apparently having the same thought, turned to have a short look of her own at the door. Only a second later, though, she turned back to him and unceremoniously seized him by the hand, leaping past him up the stairs while taking them two at a time. Despite their size differential, he was jerked around.

"What are you doing?" he hissed at her as she tried to pull him into a climb.

"Come on," she snapped in reply, tugging at him harder. Her other hand joined the first, pulling him up the stairs.

"Where?" he groaned. Trying to convey his worry, he darted a look over his shoulder at the door to the stairwell, expecting at any moment, with his luck, for Ned Stark to burst through it and interpret the scene in the worst possible way. "Arya, we shouldn't, not here—"

"Shut up. Just climb. Nobody will find us where we're going."

He groaned again, but for once he allowed himself to succumb to someone else's wishes. Taking the stairs after her, albeit at a much slower pace than the one Arya tried to set, they climbed level after level together, Gendry gaining a vague notion of where they were going on the way. Once or twice she glanced back at him and grinned mischievously. He loved it when she smiled; it actually drowned his worries, if only for a moment. What would be worse: a teammate stumbling upon them, or a reporter?

At the very top, where Gendry would have dropped a level and walked out onto a hallway, Arya instead turned to the door marked "Authorized Personnel Only" and shoved it open with a grunt, frantically pulling at him when he stopped at the threshold.

"Arya..." he moaned, as a draft from the roof she was trying to drag him onto caught him lightly in the face. "I don't know about this..."

"Come on..." she moaned back. For once, there was less command in her voice and more pleading. "Please, Gendry, we won't be out here long. I want some time with you."

"What if it locks behind us?" Even as he said it, he wasn't sure he wanted to find an excuse for them not to go out onto the roof.

"It won't. I checked it earlier. _Please_? We might not get another chance to spend time with each other on this trip."

Gendry grunted uneasily. "Maybe we _shouldn't_, at all. I don't know about this... maybe it's best we just wait until we're back in Winterfell for..." He trailed off, uncertain what he was trying to say. He finally settled for motioning between her and him with the arm that she wasn't grasping. "...this."

She scoffed in disgust and heaved with renewed vigor. It really wouldn't have moved him if he resisted, but Gendry caved. He wished he hadn't, but it was already too late for that. His shoes stepped out of the door, onto the long concrete roof of the hotel. Arya let it slam shut behind them, never relinquishing her grip, but she finally relaxed her grip as they stepped out together.

It was a rather unremarkable setting, behind them. The drab building was topped by a number of ventilation units and a small spire, for aesthetic purposes to the world around. A large platform spread across the major surface, an extra level on top of the hotel that held a satellite dish of some sort or another, but otherwise the only other adornments were series of pipes running along the roof for large intervals and short, alike.

The skyline was another matter, altogether. King's Landing had a rather large downtown, and as they stood side-by-side on the roof, the skyscrapers and municipal buildings of the city sprawled before them, giant glittering towers that sparkled with nighttime life as the last rays of light disappeared on the horizon. Gendry recognized all of them; he couldn't help but flinch with the memories of his childhood, staring up at them from a far off orphanage in the early hours of the night, walking between them on a few lucky occasions, always wanting to be where they were and not where he was. Now he was a completely different purpose, but he still couldn't decide if the view was magnificent or cursed. Arya's intake of breath was a clue to what she thought, but equal parts appreciation and sadness flooded his own mind.

Easing out of her vice, he rubbed his wrist and hand. "Viper," he commented in mock irritation, grinning down at her. "Simply asking might've worked, too."

"I'm direct," she replied wryly, shaking her head at his grin. She didn't look discouraged in the slightest. Much more gently than before, she slid her arms around his and pulled him farther onto the roof.

He let her lead him away from the door, along a concrete path bordered by a rocky roof. It was cool night but not cold; King's Landing always had sultry nights, sitting right on the ocean. The lights of the city were bright enough to navigate by, illuminating the rough path they traversed. Arya led them a short way, past a few ventilation units, sliding her hand into his and intertwining their fingers as they went. He enjoyed holding hands with her, enough that he may not have noticed if she walked them clean off the edge of the building, but she was evidently not in a murder-suicide mood, for she abruptly stopped next to a stone structure that came up to his mid-thigh. Rounding it so that she could sit facing downtown King's Landing, she pulled him to plop down next to her without ever releasing his hand. Her feet dangled several inches off of the rooftop; his comfortably rested on the stones.

Once they were both seated, she scooted closer. He was unaccustomed to having anyone so close, but the tension that entered his body eased itself away as he realized that he actually enjoyed having her practically sitting in his lap.

"Hello to you, too," he murmured with a soft laugh, squeezing her hand lightly.

"I thought about going over to yours and Robb's place a few times the past few days," she told him. Both of them looked out at the skyline, but despite the bright and undeniable magnificence of the view they had eyes more on each other.

"How would you have explained that?"

She shrugged, turning to look up at him. With their closeness, her lips brushed against his shoulder. After a moment of pause, she leaned her nose into him and inhaled deeply, surprising him. "Hence the reason I ended up not doing it. I suppose Robb would've fallen for some excuse, but after the weight room... I don't know about Robb."

"Me, neither."

"You're warm," she said. He glanced down at her to find her eyes closed with her cheek pressed against his arm. Fully turning herself, she leaned into him and threaded both arms around his, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. "You're always warm, did you know that? I noticed that, back before. Even when you're somewhere cold, you're warm."

He hummed nonchalantly. He would have shrugged, but he liked her head resting where it was. Despite himself, he murmured, "You know, if someone were to walk outside right now..."

"Don't care."

"And they'd run to Robb, or your father, and then I'd be in a lot of trouble..."

She made a noncommittal sound, making no move to put any distance between them. He didn't mind. "We'll just tell them we happened upon one another on the stairwell and decided to investigate the roof. That's the truth, more or less."

"And how will we explain this?" he asked, nodding his head against.

Arya yawned. "You being stupid, that's how we'll explain it."

He laughed slightly, and she opened her eyes. Without conscious thought, he lowered his head at the same time as she raised hers and their lips met for the second time. It was not the same as the first; there was no hungry dominance, only compassionate feeling. Her hand not holding his touched his cheek, running fingertips over the stubble that had accumulated over the day. When she finally pulled back, it wasn't much of a recession. Her forehead pressed as softly against his as their kiss had been and her fingers continued to run carelessly across his face.

He could get used to that. Mindlessly.

"Is _that _why you came down here with the team?" he teased. "Or is it all about the baseball?"

"I haven't decided yet."

She pulled away finally with a sigh, and he immediately missed the contact. She returned her head to his shoulder, one hand resting contentedly in his while her other fell atop their adjoined pile. His thumb began to move across her skin, tracing random patterns. He turned his head only enough to watch her, with her eyes closed and her cheek pressed up against him. Peaceful did not even begin to describe how she looked. For as furious as she could be, it was like he was seeing the completely opposite side of her; the unconcealed soft side of Arya Stark, something he wasn't sure she had ever shown to anybody before.

"Not much," he joked, turning his eyes back up to the skyline. "But it's home. I guess." The word didn't taste correct in his mouth when he used it in conjunction with King's Landing—not anymore—but he left it at that.

"I don't know how you lived here all your life," Arya replied. "It's so... oppressive. I feel that if I spent more than a few days here outside of the university I would tear my hair out. Even in the university, it's... everyone expects you to be a certain way, act a certain way. I hate that."

Gendry squirmed uncomfortably, trying not to move so much as to disturb Arya's perch. "When it's your only option, you adapt to it." He could feel her watching him again and quickly sought to change the subject. "I don't know if I'm looking forward to playing here again. The people of the city seem to be out for blood." He took a deep breath and shook his head at himself. "I still can't believe it. Six months ago I had _nothing_. Now I've been on the cover of a national magazine, have saved a dozen games in the _major leagues_..." His hand tightened around hers. "...and I've kissed you more than once. Could this all be a dream? Will I wake up and go on to work at the shop?"

"You're not allowed to," she barked, gripping his hand with just as much vigor as he did hers. It drew a smile to his face, if nothing else. "Besides, the team needs you. It's a tough series coming up."

"Yeah," Gendry agreed. "The Monarchs are always decent. I think I have a beat on their hitters, though, for never having played them."

For whatever reason, his comment seemed to have pushed her the wrong way. She lifted her head to stare straight at him, and her voice had regained a measure of its bite. "Decent? Gendry, the Monarchs are pretty much unbeatable. 25 _games _over five-hundred, before the all-star break? That's ridiculous!"

Gendry shrugged, tugging on her in the attempt to pull her back to his shoulder. "All right, so they're a really good team. We'll take care of business."

"They're not really good," Arya stated, holding her ground off of his shoulder. "They're incredible. I hate to admit it, I hate the Monarchs, but they're the best team in the league and there may not be another in sight. Their lineup is dominant! Arys Oakheart, Meryn Trant, Janos Slynt. They pulled over Loras Tyrell from Highgarden in a trade last month and he's only had one game without a hit since. The only hole in their lineup is my future fucking brother-in-law—" She hesitated every slightly, something he may simply have imagined, but punctuated her description by adding, "—the supreme asshole of the universe, and they only tolerate him because he'll own the fucking team someday. They've had him hitting _clean-up _ever since Tywin fucking Lannister won his court case over my dad. _Clean-up_. But then again, when you've got Sandor Clegane in front of him it doesn't really matter..."

"I know all these people," he groaned, swinging his head around lazily, droningly. "I worshipped them from afar just a little bit of time ago, remember?"

"Yeah, but you've never _faced _them. It's not the same thing, trust me."

"Okay, Miss Major-League-Pitcher—"

"Oakheart is jerky at the plate, but hang _anything _and he makes you regret it. Tyrell hits offspeed pitches the way normal people hit off of a tee. Clegane doesn't have a hole in his swing. His only weakness is a curveball and it's gotta be a damn good one to fool him."

"I'm not afraid of Clegane," Gendry insisted.

"He's not afraid of you, either," Arya said, still watching him. "He's a tough son of a bitch and from what I've heard he doesn't care about anything or anybody. You know his scars?" He nodded—he was very familiar with the mottled, eternally bruised and blackened right side of Sandor Clegane's face—and she continued, "The rumors say a whole boatload about how he might've gotten them, but the word I've heard underneath the table is when he was still a kid his brother, Gregor, took a bat to him and beat him half to death. More than half. People say they hate each other."

Gendry recalled the Mountain Who Swings and the homicidal gawk he had received after striking the behemoth out. With a shiver, he managed to get out, "I can believe it."

"The Monarchs are dangerous," Arya added, and her arms became a little bit tighter around his. "Maybe in more ways than just baseball." She opened her mouth to say something else but refrained.

Gendry still heard the warning hanging on the air and rubbed more patterns into the back of her hand. "I will be," he told her. "I will be." He turned to kiss her again. There wasn't much heat or lust in it, but they didn't separate anything for a while thereafter, and the last things on Gendry's mind were the King's Landing Monarchs.

Arya wound up being correct about one thing, at least: the Monarchs were formidable on a level the Direwolves had not faced that year.

From the beginning, their opponents appeared dangerous. Upon entering the ballpark for the first time the players spread out the field hunting batting practice flyballs like hawks. The coaching staff lined up immediately in front of the dugout: Pycelle, the manager, with his pants pulled up nearly as high as his beard was long, nevertheless a mastermind of the game; Jaime Lannister, the hitting coach, the picture of valiancy and all things that were incredible; Kevan Lannister, the younger brother of Tywin, and a dedicated scholar of everything remotely resembling a pitch. Gendry got the impression that the Monarchs had weapons and tools lurking in every corner of their dugout, ready to be whipped out and thrown at their opponents at any moment, and he was not referring to players or equipment when he made the observation.

In the first inning of the first game, Hallis, Edric, and Robb struck out in order, followed by a two-run home run from Tyrell and a double off the center field wall by Clegane before an out was even recorded. Gendry watched uselessly from the bullpen as five runs were surrendered in the first three innings. By the fifth, Luwin was forced to call Desmond into the game, at which time Oakheart proved Arya true by driving a belt-high fastball over the opposite field fence for a solo shot. By the time the seventh had come to a conclusion, the Monarchs had tacked on another two to their original six. The Direwolves only score came on a lucky home run from Hallis in the late innings, a ball that bounced off the top of the left-center wall and squeaked its way over for a meek run. Gendry was tossed in the pitch the ninth whilst his team was down by seven runs, and suffered the blemish of giving up another through a pair of two-out doubles to the eighth and ninth hitters before finally getting Slynt to fly out in the leadoff spot. Then again, it wasn't much of a flyout; the ball was hit so hard that Gendry felt it buzz past his head on the way out to center, and Edric actually took a few steps backwards before catching it.

The colossal boos that rocked the stadium as he entered the game and left the field left his ears ringing long after he had entered the clubhouse. In light of the environment and the circumstances, he avoided the media like the plague, and was grateful when Luwin once again deftly deflected their attempts to reach him. He could almost feel the hate that permeated the clubhouse walls, the stadium walls, pushing down against him even after he climbed on the bus tiredly back to the hotel.

In the second game, Jory continued his hot streak on the mound, against all odds. There was a fair bit of luck involved, of course; a sure single hit up the middle bounced off of second base, right in Hallis' mitt for a throw-to-first groundout, and Mikken pegged a runner out at home who tripped halfway to the plate and subsequently was trapped in a rundown. Nevertheless, in the fourth inning Robb led off in the three-hole with a weak liner to right field for a single. Another two singles, separated by a popout, brought him in for the Direwolves' first run, after which Mikken sent an 0-2 curveball sailing over the far center field wall for a three-run home run.

Jory lasted into the eighth inning, holding the Monarchs to a single run and maintaining a 4-1 lead for his team. In the top of the ninth inning, the call came in for Gendry to warm up for the save opportunity, and he did so with a mix of anticipation and trepidation. The Direwolves fell quickly in the ninth, and then Gendry was trotting down the short steps of the bullpen that led to field level and passing through the outfield door that led into the baseball field.

The moment he set his feet outside of the protection of the wall the hackling and hissing began in the crowd. The general buzz of anger and hatred escalated quickly to full-out homicidal rage by the time he was jogging across the infield dirt. He gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore the boos and slants raining down on him from fifty thousand mouths around the stadium, taking an extra moment to dust his hands to distract himself from them and refocus.

Robb jogged out after the eight stretch pitches and caught the ball from the third baseman himself before handing it to Gendry. "Just like always, eh? Let's get 'em, man."

"Just like always," Gendry agreed, and they patted mitts before going their separate ways. Gendry turned his back to the plate and scraped dirt around on his mound until he was comfortable, fully focusing in on the moment before he stepped to the rubber and gazed in for his first victim.

The eighth hitter, the ugly, hard-chewing catcher named Boros Blount, dug into the batter's box with a sharp scowl for the pitching mound. Even as their player took his stance for the pitch, the crowd did not let up its disapproval in the slightest, raving over the top of the play as though Gendry were a convicted murderer. He forced himself to focus, keeping his face blank while he leaned in to take the sign, surrounded by a self-imposed void of silence. A fair margin of shouts managed to penetrate even his concentration.

Robb called for an outside fastball for the first pitch, ninety-nine mile per hour heat nipping the corner of the plate, and Gendry nodded immediately before coming set. Pausing for a moment at the height of his delivery, thousands of screaming voices nearly made his step falter. Nearly.

As it was, the pitch missed off of the outside corner for ball one. Blount stepped out of the box, glaring at Gendry the entire time for a practice swing. Another moment of delay had Gendry ready to stalk to the plate to forcefully place the man back in the box, but he refrained. When the hitter was finally ready again, Robb called for another fastball in the same location.

This time, the pitch was true, but Blount took it without visible concern for the first strike. Another long delay as the man stepped out of the box went unnoticed by the crowd, in their continued onslaught of Gendry. A few voices were loud enough to carry their profanities far off that Gendry could pick out exactly what they were calling him. _Focus. Concentration. On the hitter._

Robb wanted a slider on 1-1, but Gendry shook him off. The heat was what he knew, and the heat was what confused hitters. Robb obliged and sat back on his haunches for the pitch. Gendry made as little a pause at the top of his motion as he needed to gain his balance before striding and heaving at the plate.

The ball crossed in the same location as the previous pitch, tucking itself neatly into the corner pocket of the strike zone. Blount let it go uncontested a second time, his face the same impassive scowl as ever. Robb framed the pitch for the called strike.

The umpire said nothing. The large man in black stood behind the plate, signifying the end to the play, and Robb drew back his mitt slowly before digging the ball out and lobbing it back. Gendry caught it in a state of uncertainty, staring back at the umpire, seriously waiting for a belated strike call. Words were clearly exchanged between Robb and the man, but Robb came away shaking his head in disbelief, and the ball call stood. As Gendry stood there looking towards the plate, finally turning away, the crowd screamed in anger at him, and a new wave of names flowed over him.

He dug his cleats into the rubber, taking a deep breath through gritted teeth to calm himself. It didn't matter that he should have been up in the count. Or that the crowd was distracting him. _Next pitch, next pitch_.

Robb wanted another fastball, farther over the plate and low. Gendry came set and delivered it, a few inches off his target but good enough for a strike. Blount swung on it and got a piece. The baseball deflected away from Robb's glove, bouncing in the dirt of foul territory a few feet away from the batter's box to the first-base side and spinning out on the ground. Gendry received a new ball from Robb triumphantly, the count having run back to even.

On 2-2, Robb glanced up at Blount before flashing a spiked slider. Gendry considered it a moment too long and Robb flashed another sign. He raised his arm in a spinning motion to tell Robb to go back to the previous pitch before stepping off the rubber in the confusion. The crowd booed loudly, nearly making him scowl, and it was sheer mental effort that put him back on the mound without throwing something somewhere, at somebody.

This time, when his catcher wanted the slider in the dirt, Gendry nodded. His arm motion as he stepped felt slightly off, and his elbow twanged with the effort of throwing the tricky pitch, but the ball sailed as it should have, albeit short. Blount cocked his shoulders as though to swing at it but thought better of it, letting the pitch bounce low, a few inches behind the plate, before Robb sank to his knees and let it ricochet harmlessly off of his chest protector.

Full count. The crowd was a mixture of cheers for his failure and continued ridicule at him, in general. He stepped to the rubber and came set nearly before Robb had a fastball sign down, sitting over the heart of the plate. Perhaps not the best place to throw a straight heat pitch, but Gendry threw hard, and with a full count there were few options.

He strode and threw. Blount swung and sent a popup careening back behind the screen in foul territory. Gendry sighed, receiving a new baseball, and marched back to the mound to do it again. The next call was also a fastball, and Gendry delivered it low and inside, only to have Blount nick it down and away behind him and Robb and the umpire for another foul.

It was becoming a tedious at-bat, and the crowd knew it. Seven pitches into the inning and he had not recorded an out, and was also in a difficult position with the batter before him. The crowd gleefully booed, now, pressing the atmosphere in on him furiously.

_Maintain composure. Ignore them. You are better._

After two foul ball fastballs, Robb wanted a slider in the strike zone. Gendry accepted it blindly, choosing to trust in his captain in the heat of the moment. He gripped the ball with the same passion that he had held Arya the first time they had kissed, and arced his elbow painfully but skillfully as he strode for the plate.

The ball was off, too outside. Blount clearly never considering swinging as Robb sank to a knee to snag it from the air, and the hideous man tossed his bat away carelessly as he jogged down to first base with his leadoff walk.

Gendry stabbed the returning baseball out of the air with gusto, growling angrily to himself. "Come on. Leadoff walk? You _hate _leadoff walks. Come fucking on. Throw the damn baseball. You're better than this crowd."

He kept muttering to himself as a pinch hitter stepped in to hit for the pitcher. The batter who stepped in was young, a considerably handsomer and happier looking man than Blount had been. "Balon Swann" was announced over the loudspeaker, and Swann stepped in looking much more comfortable than he had any right to be. Gendry resolved to wipe the confidence from the man's face.

After coming set and checking on Blount at first in the corner of his eye, Gendry delivered a solid heater low and straightaway for the first strike. Robb wanted an outside fastball for the second pitch, a bait to see if they could get Swann to go fishing, but the man held his swing. Gendry's control faltered, in the negative; Robb rose to his feet in catching the ball around Swann's shoulders, a good six inches outside. The captain nodded for calm before tossing the ball back. Blount stayed put where he was.

The crowd's noise impeding on his mental wall, Gendry toed the rubber, clenching the muscles in his arm angrily. _Throw the damn ball, Waters._

So he did. A fastball over the middle.

Swann swung and launched a ball high in the gap to right-center. Gendry spun on the spot to watch it fly as the hitter left the batter's box at a sprint. Blount surged halfway to second, watching the baseball soar as the crowd roared with excitement. Gendry swore and backpedaled to back-up third base, watching Mikken and Edric stream towards the baseball that abruptly turned direction and began to hurtle back towards the field of play. At the very last moment, covering almost twenty feet of distance, Edric lunged two strides and entered a full-extension dive, snagging the ball almost off the grass.

Gendry breathed a sigh of relief, and the crowd cried out in shock and disbelief. Swann stopped short around first with an audible groan of annoyance as Blount retreated to the base. Edric popped back to his feet immediately, hurling the ball into the infield and receiving a high-five from Mikken for the outstanding play. Over the infield and the infielders, Gendry watched Edric make eye contact with him. Not grudgingly at all, he lifted his hand and pointed out to him in appreciation and Edric nodded back with a grin.

Blount remained on first, with one out, the Direwolves up by three, and Slynt stepped into the left-handed batter's box with wild eyes. The man looked ready to chew rocks. Gendry was less than intimidated, but more than a little riled by the animosity of the ballpark attendance. He shoved away his displeasing feelings, though, and focused on Slynt.

He didn't have a very long time to focus. Slynt drove the first-pitch fastball into the right-center field gap on a line. The boos and catcalls morphed instantly in screams of delight as the ball fell into the grass and Mikken rushed frantically to cut it off.

Gendry swore once again and took off to back up third base as Blount rounded second. Slynt, running hard, was around first and heading for second by the time Mikken scooped the ball from the turf, but the right fielder's cannon delivered the ball to second base, even across the long outfield distance, in an instant. Slynt stopped dead between the bases as Hallis pulled the ball in at second, and Gendry's heart jumped in triumph as he realized the man was caught in a rundown.

Blount, seeing his teammate's quandary, shuffled a few paces towards home plate before taking off at a sprint. Gendry noticed instantly and cried out, "Home! Home!"

Hallis' eyes turned towards the plate as he chased Slynt back towards first with the ball, but even seeing Blount take off for the plate he stayed on Slynt, charging forward the last few paces before he was able to run the man down for the second out, just as Blount crossed the plate for a run. Gendry bristled, but understood and agreed with Hallis' smart move; they were still up by two, and now had two outs. One more would give them the victory.

Yet, as Gendry walked back to the mound, still secure in the save situation, the startlingly young face of Loras Tyrell stepping into the batter's box and the startlingly scarred face of Sandor Clegane stepping into the on-deck circle set his heart thumping uneasily. The two were as different as night and day, but each wore the dark uniform of the Monarchs with a different fury, and each glared at Gendry as if they knew exactly what he was thinking. _I've got to get out of this._

The sudden anxiety must have showed on his face. Robb got half down into his crouch before suddenly popping up and jogging out to Gendry. Gendry cringed, annoyed at the delay, wanting to get right on with the hitter, but he stepped down to meet Robb at the base of the mound and spoke first. "I'm good. Let's get Tyrell and get out of here."

"Hang on," Robb replied, placing his ungloved hand on Gendry's shoulder and holding him in place. "Just take it easy for a minute. You've got time for a deep breath." Gendry obliged him, and Robb nodded before adding, "Now, I don't think we want to face Clegane, so we gotta go after Tyrell here. Off-speed is his bread and butter. I want to stick with outside heat, all the way. Can you hit that spot?"

"You call for it," Gendry told him, trying to put a bit of the steel in his voice that he had seen in Ned Stark. "I'll hit it."

Robb stared at him for a moment, and then jerked his head strangely. "All right." The Direwolves' catcher returned to the plate, and Gendry took another deep breath before stepping to the rubber to dance with Loras Tyrell.

His first fastball may have brushed the corner of the plate, but Tyrell let it pass, and the umpire did not call a strike. Frustration built in his mind, but he squashed it once again beneath determination. He would not reduce himself to arguing the strike zone.

The second fastball also missed; low, this time. As Gendry stepped back onto the mound, Robb was forced to call for a third fastball, dangerous when down two balls in the count. They had little choice, however, with Tyrell hitting breaking balls as he did. Gendry was forced to deliver the third heater of the at-bat.

Tyrell didn't let it go by. He slugged the pitch on a line past a diving third baseman, rolling down the left field line and all the way into the corner. Tyrell was a streak around the basepaths, and by the time the throw came back in he was retreating back to second after thinking about trying for third, and the crowd's cheers droned out their boos.

_Son of a bitch_, Gendry thought, and heard himself whispering it aloud, too. He shook his head at himself, slamming a fist into his glove, but forced himself to say, "It doesn't matter. One out. That's all you need. All you need."

Except that the out he needed was stepping up to the plate in the massive figure of Sandor Clegane.

Arya hadn't been off with his description. Nowhere near as tall or as wide as his brother the Mountain, Sandor nevertheless stood hulking over anything near him. His face was horribly scarred beneath his batter's helmet, spilled over by greasy threads of hair that were not arranged in any particular order. The Monarchs jersey he wore was two sizes too small, his bulky arms stretched its sleeves to its limit, and even his forearms were massive. If not for the element of size, actually, Gendry may have said that Sandor Clegane looked fiercer than Gregor, if based purely upon facial expression. Where he would have cowered in front of Gregor, though, Gendry stood up straight and stared back, utterly refusing to be bullied this time.

Clegane did not wait for a coach's sign. He didn't waste time. He stepped to the plate and put the bat on his shoulder, waiting with a cruel twist of his lips for the pitch. Fifty thousand throats around the arena shouted their support for the repugnant man while they simultaneously screamed their hatred for Gendry. The oppression of the moment was ridiculous. _One out. One fucking out._

Offspeed pitches were the man's weakness, if he put enough of a break on it. Robb called for a slider, low and away. Gendry agreed. He came set, completely ignoring Tyrell in his intensity towards Clegane at the plate. The hitter waited, either patiently or stonily, the bat sitting on his shoulders stiffly. His eyes watched Gendry, and Gendry's watched his, a battle of two masters of their craft, a careful game with no rules between the hunter and the hunted. Gendry couldn't say who was which.

He waited in the set, waited and waited and waited some more, if only for the purpose of making Clegane break his stance. The crowd hollered, Robb flexed his mitt, Tyrell hopped about near second base, but Gendry only had eyes for Clegane.

Suddenly, a large snarl ripped out of the hitter's throat. "Come on, bastard!" Clegane roared. "Throw the fucking ball before I throw something at your fucking head!"

Gendry cracked, striding an heaving the slider towards the plate hard enough to earn a short cry of effort. The ball soared over the heart of the plate...

Clegane swung. The bat shattered into a thousand pieces, but all of a sudden the ball was gone.

Tiny splinters rained towards Gendry and he raised his arms to protect himself as the crowd suddenly gasped with glee and erupted. Gendry saw Clegane hurl the footlong piece of jagged wood he still held in his hand into the ground before setting off at a comfortable run towards first. The bat head, still the size of a fist, thunked into the infield dirt near shortstop, and as Gendry turned to look at it he finally caught sight of the ball.

It was soaring perhaps a hundred feet in the air, still, plummeting majestically towards the second deck beyond left field. Forlornly, he watched the ball bury itself in the roiling mass of fans, and a renewed explosion of cheering and booing bled through the stadium. The scoreboard clicked two runs into the Monarchs' frame of the ninth, signifying the tie game.

Gendry kicked the rubber, which got him nothing more than a sore toe. Every profanity he knew slipped between his teeth as he watched Clegane round the bases. The fucking prick ran with his head high, not even respectful enough to look at Gendry at all. The man barely tapped the third base coach's hand at third base, and all but ignored Tyrell waiting at the plate. Gendry couldn't have told if the fan's elation at the tied game or their hatred for him was louder, but each hammered a stake of defeat into his chest a little deeper. Long after Clegane crossed home and a new ball was tossed to Gendry, the crowd drowned out all thought in horrific joy.

A look towards the Direwolves' dugout showed frustrated faces, shaking heads that looked everywhere but at him. Luwin had turned to Rodrik Cassel, their heads bowed with eternally grim faces. Gendry had little doubt that word would be sent to the bullpen to warm someone up, if it hadn't been done already.

He punched his mitt again, furious with himself. Furious with the crowd. Furious with the world for the light they'd shown on him. _All I fucking want is to fucking play baseball! _"Well, you are playing baseball," he growled, forcing himself to walk back onto the mound. "So play fucking baseball. The game's not over. You still have an out to get."

So he took the rubber and looked back in to the plate.

Joffrey Lannister sat in the box, glaring at him with eyes more hateful than any Gendry could find in the crowd. The scrawny, blonde-haired hitter tapped his toes and wrung his shrimpy bat as though he had better things to do than sit there waiting for his pitch. Worse than the eyes, though, was the mocking, arrogant smirk plastered on the little fucker's face.

"Hey, bastard!" he screamed. The umpire, either deaf or awful, made no sign that he had heard. "You're our best player tonight! Glad you decided to play for your home team."

Shaking with rage, Gendry leaned over and waited for the sign from Robb. The catcher himself looked about ready to punch Lannister in the gut, but after a tense moment he dropped a sign for a fastball. Gendry nodded, standing upright to come set. _One out, and you can get out of here. This game can still be won._

"Hey! Looks like fucking Dad never taught you how to play ball! Because he fucking left you in the filthy slums where you belong!"

Gendry cracked. His stride wasn't normal, wasn't directed at the plate, but it didn't matter. He slung the baseball as hard as he could at Joffrey's head.

His aim was though, thank the gods for him; Joffrey yelped in surprise and Robb dove to catch it, but the ball caught the asshole in the batter's box directly between the numbers. He dropped like a stone with a cry of agony so feeble that Gendry nearly broke out laughing.

Whilst his half-brother rolled around in the dirt, the crowd took a collective gasp of shocked horror and promptly set off like a nuclear bomb. If it had been loud before, it was earth-shattering now. They were not the only ones; in only a moment every Monarch in their dugout was on his feet, leaping off of the top steps and strutting out onto the field. Half of them glared towards Joffrey with a mix of disdain and anger, but the other half were taking furious steps towards Gendry on the mound.

And then the umpire strode around the plate, his mask off and stalking dangerously towards Gendry. "You!" he shouted, pointing right at the pitcher. His hand and arm raised to the air, tossing a fake man high into the air. "You're out of here!"

"What?!" Gendry roared. Suddenly Robb was there, somehow between him and the umpire, holding him back bodily. Gendry realized that he was several steps closer to the man clad in black that he had been only a few moments previously, but did not stop. Robb, in all his bulk, wasn't much of a paperweight. "Are you fucking kidding me? Did you hear what he said to me, him _and _Clegane?!"

"Get off the field!" the umpire cried. "You're done!"

Gendry had a few more choice words for the man, but there was no more time to say anything. All of a sudden a wall of Direwolves was between him and the umpire, him and the Monarchs, and voices and insults were flying through midair. Luwin had taken in his place in the umpire's face, shouting with a furiously red expression. Gendry caught a sight of Edric accomplishing little in trying to push Mikken away from a snarling Slynt. Cassel had sought out Kevan Lannister, and they were having a mindless shouting match that rivaled Luwin's. Joffrey remained on the ground, rolling like the crybaby that he was, the trainer on his knees gushing over the little prick as though his neck was broken.

No punches were thrown. Luwin ended up not being tossed, and Gendry, despite his greatest efforts to reach either the umpire or some Monarch that he could clock in the face, was heaved back by a collective effort of Jory, Robb, and Hallis and tossed rather unskillfully into the dugout. The Direwolves were piled back in after him, a collective wave that prevented him from getting back on the field to express his anger. The crowd's horrible cries of outrage had been sheltered by the near-brawl, but now, even beneath the dugout, he could easily hear their collective jubilee over the scene they had just observed. Joffrey had been hustled off under his own power, most likely none the worse for the bruise on his back, and a pinch runner was being brought in. Somehow, in the mix, Cayn was called in from the bullpen and had begun warming up, Robb back at the plate to catch him.

Gendry shrugged off Jory, who still held him back, and stalked up the dugout, brushing past bodies left and right, until he came up before Luwin, who was backing in his corner, murmuring viciously to Cassel, who still glared over at the Monarchs' dugout with fury. "Luwin, that asshole said—"

"Go." When his manager looked at him, the eyes were completely cold. Gendry nearly took a step back; Luwin had never addressed him so blankly, so horribly. The bald man raised a stiff finger and pointed back up the tunnel he stood before, back towards the clubhouse. "I don't care who said what. You've been ejected from the game. Get out of here. Whatever you have to say, you'll wait to say it."

The man turned away without another word. Cassel only cast a wary look that verged very closely on disappointment and followed suit.

Gendry stood for a moment in complete shock. When he moved, it was to turn to Jory. The starter glanced once at his uncle and the manager and then looked to Gendry with forlorn eyes. One nod towards the tunnel told him exactly how welcome he was in the dugout. For a single moment longer he hesitated. In anger, his glove left his hand, slamming hard into the dugout wall and dropping to the bench; Jory watched it go. Without retrieving it, Gendry tore his hat and jersey off and stalked up the tunnel.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

His thoughts consisted mostly of profanity and fury, images of hateful faces and horrible boos, as he entered the empty locker room, flinging his removed articles of clothing into his locker in rage. He tore off the rest of his clothes and tossed them in after, grumbling to himself. "Not my fucking fault, not my fucking fault. The little shit had it coming to him, it didn't even hurt, he's just a fucking pussy that can't take a goddamn hit."

Raving made him feel no better. He had entered the game with a three-run lead and three outs to get. He had only gotten two outs, and Sandor Clegane had knocked the only pitch he'd seen over the fence for a game-tying round tripper. Off of _him_. A blown save, his first ever. Gendry slapped the face of his locker in anger before seizing a towel and stalking towards the shower.

The radio was on, there, denoting the return to gameplay after Cayn was finally warmed up. Gendry turned the water on cold and wished he had something to smash the speakers with. The droplets cascaded across his skin, washing away sweat and dirt but not the filthy guilt and fury that clung to his heart. He leaned both forearms against the wall and pressed his forehead into them, listening to the broadcast and hating everything that had just happened.

The first pitch Cayn delivered was ripped over the left field fence for a home run, two pitches after Sandor had done the same to Gendry. Game over. Monarchs' victory.

Feeling completely dejected, Gendry stood under the water, waiting for and dreading the moment when his teammates would join him in the showers, many of them most likely glancing at him with disgust or anger, not understanding his fury, unhappy that he had cost them the game. Anger simmered and washed away with the water, becoming anguish and finally just a dull, exhausted twinge of annoyance.

A clearing throat finally caused him to raise his head, and he turned to find Ned Stark standing at the shower entrance, in full suit and tie, his arms crossed and his eyes even darker than they had been when they had spoken in the owner's office back in Winterfell. Gendry turned to face him, awkward in his nakedness despite the divider that hid him from the waist down. It mattered little; with the glare he had on, Ned Stark would have made him feel naked if he had been wearing a dozen fur coats.

"So," the owner toned. His voice was pure winter. "What exactly happened out there?"

"I'm sorry," Gendry said immediately, gritting his teeth against the memory of the pitches of his and what the hitters had done to them. "I missed some spots, and they capitalized. I should have been able to focus through the crowd—"

"That's not what I'm talking about." Even interrupting, his voice was more of a subtle knife than a screeching intervention. "You blew a save. Whatever. I lost almost a hundred and fifty games in my career. It happens. But please me what the fuck you were thinking when you threw at Joffrey Lannister. Don't tell me you didn't try."

He may as well have shouted it, but his voice was soft enough that Gendry barely heard it over the running water. Reaching behind himself, he shut it off, gulping as he realized why Ned Stark was there. "I... I just let the crowd get to me. And then Lannister said some things that hit me in the wrong way. With everything that was going on, I just... he had it coming."

"I believe you," Ned Stark said. "But that's no excuse. You lost composure. Worse than that, you took a personal vendetta and cost your team with it. You may have cost them the game. Being beaten once in a while is life, but _that_ is completely unacceptable."

Gendry was too tired to be angry, but a slip of it seeped through his exhaustion, giving an edge to his voice. "What am I supposed to do? Just let them say anything they want?"

"You're supposed to be better than them. Not the same shit they're being." The man hadn't moved, but Gendry felt as though he'd been slapped in the face. To hear such a thing coming from Ned Stark, he who had pulled Gendry from the streets on a whim, felt a hundred times worse than being tossed from a professional baseball game. He was not finished, either; his eyes gleamed bright and icy. "I picked you up because I trusted you, because I believed in you. I had no idea that what has happened would happen but even when it did I thought you were stronger than this. Are you stronger than this? Are you strong enough?"

Behind the divider, Gendry gripped the concealed railing with two hands and white knuckles. Half in anger and half in anguish, he growled, "I'm strong enough."

In horribly slow motion, Ned Stark shrugged. "Are you? You didn't show that tonight. I'm not sure. Luwin's not sure. Are _you _even sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Well, you're going to have to prove it now, Gendry. The whole world saw what you just did. Put what they thought before with what they saw, and what do you think they think now?"

Gendry bowed his head beneath the words, the reality of what Ned Stark was saying opening up before him. What _had _he looked like, giving up runs and then hitting a man intentionally? _It was warranted_, he growled to himself. But TV wouldn't show that. Radio wouldn't show that. The crowd in King's Landing certainly wasn't on his side. To the outside world, he was only another asshole who had gone off his rocker when the game didn't go his way.

_Which I did_.

"What can I do?" he murmured.

Ned Stark was a moment in responding. "I don't know, Gendry. You just took a huge step back, after you were dealing with the whole media ordeal so well. I'm putting this behind us because I've giving you the benefit of the doubt. What has happened is yours to deal with. Make a choice and start convincing the world the face you just showed isn't you. Keep your head. Don't let it affect your team. Don't let it affect your game. It's already cost you. Minimize the damage and move along." Gendry raised his head to find the man turning to leave, before freezing and looking back. "One more thing: never let it happen again, because I _won't _forget that it happened next time."

The older man strode out of the shower, leaving Gendry feeling even more naked than he literally was. The Direwolves eventually entered the shower and didn't look at Gendry at all, all save for a friendly pat on the shoulder from Edric.

The only thought worse than the hole he had just dug himself into was what Arya was going to say.


	16. Chapter 15

**To my unhappy reviewer Tenages: please see the four links at the bottom of my profile.**

**15**

Arya waited up that night, lounging on the roof where she and Gendry had spent their few precious moments a couple nights before. She hadn't really expected him to come, and he didn't. Likely he wasn't avoiding her, but if he turned out to be she wasn't about to let him slip away from her. Arya Stark did not shy away from a challenge. Or a problem. Sooner or later he would have to face her.

It wasn't like she was _mad _at him. Her father's mood and shocked face at the dematerialization of the scene following Joffrey's hit-by-pitch clearly told her that _he _was. He stalked out of her box with barely three words to her as the teams were being ushered back into their dugouts, and she was relatively certain he had gone down to either give Gendry an earful or to deliver a stern, undertone speaking-to which was tenfold worse. She would have loved to go down to him herself, but didn't know what kind of a state he was in. His anger didn't scare her, nor would she ever fear for her safety in his presence, but something told her that if he saw her it would only make whatever emotions he was racing through worse. Grudgingly, she made the decision to wait. He would come to her when he was ready, which, apparently, wasn't that night.

In the morning, her father's concealed anger had dissipated, and he was back to only being critical of the gameplay rather than the hectic way that it ended. When she asked him what would happen to Gendry as a result of the previous night, Ned Stark simply shrugged and shook his head. "As far as the team, the incident is behind us. He and I have had all the conversation we need to have and I believe he'll move on. The league office will probably just right it off as a reprimand; he wasn't warned by the umpire before he hit Joffrey, after all. It was essentially a toss of assumption. I don't expect punishment in any manner."

"You're not going to punish him?" Arya asked, mildly surprised. Her father was usually a strict man for discipline and control.

"I'm sure he's punishing himself enough," Ned Stark told her, with a little grin that may have been either knowing or grimacing. "I'm confident he won't let it again."

Arya scoffed. "When you stormed out of the box last night, I thought you were going to kill him. Or, worse, cut him from the team."

He shook his head, making an expression of nonchalance. "The thought never crossed my mind. I told him what he needed to hear, and he knows what he did was wrong. The matter is closed. The only thing about that game now is that it was a loss that counts against our record."

"Well, with the way the team is playing," Arya replied, "one game won't hurt you."

"Last time I checked, we had lost two straight games."

"Yeah," Arya drawled, "but it's the _Monarchs_. There's no shame in that loss, infuriating as it is."

Ned Stark drew himself up and crossed his arms. "I think Gendry actually put it best, in that respect. If we want to compete, now and in the postseason, then there are no acceptable losses. We need to be as good a team as all of the teams we face. That's the road to championships."

He left a short while later, leaving Arya with that little bit of food for thought. He was meeting with Luwin in the clubhouse before the other players arrived for the series-concluding afternoon game, leaving her to her own resources to make it from the hotel to the stadium. With a few hours left to spare, she reconsidered her decision to leave Gendry to come to her; in all honesty, she would have gone to knock on his room door and speak with him if not for the probably chance that he was still with Robb. She wasn't scared of meeting her brother and Gendry together, but she was jealous when she did, in a regard: when she saw Gendry, she wanted all of him, and all of his words, to herself. Besides, she reminded herself that she had decided it would do no good to turn back on her decision if he hadn't gathered himself enough to face her openly and honestly.

Robb and Ned, she knew, were not returning with the rest of the team; they would both, along with Jory and Hallis, be traveling to Riverrun for the all-star break. Arya had decided not to go with them, loathe as she was to miss watching the current greats go at it in a single game, simply because whenever she journeyed to her mother's home city she found herself immensely bored the entire time. Her uncle Edmure was the only bright spot—sometimes—and he had only ever made it to Single-A ball. Because of such, and seemingly by an unintentional rule of thumb, he gave off the impression that he was intimidated by Starks, which sometimes made it awkward even for Arya. The Blackfish, her great-uncle Brynden, was really the only Tully that she really got along with, but he had moved after Aunt Lysa to the Eyrie years before. She saw him even less often than her grandfather Hoster.

Giving thought to her brother and father brought something else to mind that she had been meaning to do while in King's Landing. She only had a few things on her agenda that weren't baseball-related; the ones that weren't Sansa had to do with school, and she was not prepared to admit that she had to return to the university in only a little over a month. Her sister, however, was a matter she was rather eager to see to, especially after what had happened last night with Joffrey. The little wimp had rolled on the ground for minutes after the pitch hit him in the meat of his back. _She _would have popped up and jogged to first without so much as a grimace; Gendry, with his physique, might not have felt the blow, at all. What concerned her about the event was its repercussions on Sansa—indeed, the repercussions of the Starks being in town at all, on Sansa—but also whatever had happened in relation to the willingness to reconsider her relationship that Sansa had possessed when she had made her intervention.

After eating her breakfast, she called her sister, intending to arrange to go over to the apartment Sansa shared with her horrific fiancé. A horrible risk, seeing as Joffrey was quite probably still there, so early in the morning, but she hoped to avoid him by making plans early. Sansa did not answer her phone, however, and Arya reasoned that she may still have been asleep, on the weekend morning. So, despite risking Joffrey still being in their place of residence, Arya finally grew bored with waiting and left the hotel shortly before midmorning to go to Sansa's place.

It was a short taxi ride; mostly on Joffrey's ridiculous bloated salary, the two had a penthouse in the downtown of the city, less than ten blocks from her hotel. She would have walked, but the darkening sky threatened to open at any moment and she wanted to spare enough time to make it to the ballpark well before the start of the game. Not to mention, whenever she went for strolls in King's Landing wearing sweat pants and drab t-shirts, she often garnered distasteful stares.

Riding the elevator fifteen floors to the top was a mixture of feeling grossly underdressed and contempt for those who made enough money to live in such a place guiltlessly. Sansa was one of those people, which annoyed her further; she genuinely did not think of her sister as pompous, but there were inevitable times when she thought the red-haired beauty was the straight-up picture of the southern aristocrat stereotype. Arya tentatively prayed that the new glimpses of fortitude and wisdom Sansa had shown to her would take root, for good.

The elevator opened, finally, onto a large landing that served essentially as a front door. The floor-to-ceiling windows that bordered both sides, a very short tunnel to the large, white wooden doors that would open to reveal her sister's humble abode, a ten thousand square foot expanse of plush and expensive furniture, two bedrooms, a full jacuzzi bath, and a spacious entertainment center in which no human should ever have right to live. The bright marble floor and deep red carpet leading up to the front door accentuated the wealth of the complex. Arya had only been here once before, but that visit had nearly killed Joffrey in his petulant arrogance. It was pure desire to snoop into her sister's life—for the greater good, of course—that overrode her hatred and urge to turn on her heel and leave.

Despite the gloom outside, the massive windows and dazzling floor nearly made her blink from the brightness. Darting quickly across the carpet, feeling uncomfortable only treading on it, she seized on of the ugly, golden lion knockers and tapped quietly, praying to the old gods and the new that Joffrey would not answer the door. She remembered what had happened the previous night; if he came out, she may not have been able to hold herself back from pummeling him.

She waited long moments, but no one came to answer the door. She knocked again, considering the unlikely possibility that Sansa was out so early. "Sansa? It's Arya. I called you, but you didn't pick up. I really want to talk to you."

_I'm talking to an empty penthouse_, she reasoned dryly after another minute spent tapping her foot in impatience. It really would be a shame to leave King's Landing without speaking with her sister once, not learning what the ripples of the intervention had turned into.

With a sigh, Arya turned to stride back across the unnecessarily expensive carpet and froze when she heard the door creak open behind her. With an unfairly beautiful case of bedhead, Sansa poked her heard out of the doorway, visibly jumping when her eyes fell on Arya.

"What are you doing here?" she squeaked. It _was _a squeak: she sounded as though she'd popped out of bed only seconds before.

Arya frowned and cocked her head to one side. "I love you, too, sis. I came to see how you were doing, with the whole asshole thing and all." She gestured past her sister, towards the unseen penthouse. As she did so, Sansa inched the door a little bit more closed, almost receding inside. Arya couldn't see her fully, but the bit of shoulder and arm that was holding the door ajar was clad in a bath robe, dark pink only to mock her. She felt her eyes narrow as suspicions grew. "What's up? Is the loser _here_?"

"No, but—"

"Oh, that's a relief," Arya said, and drew the door wider herself enough to sneak by Sansa and into the penthouse. "I can't tell you how many times I almost didn't come just because he might have been here..."

The spacious entrance and sitting room were much as she'd remembered. Giant chairs and a pair of shocking couches framed a flat-screen TV nearly as tall as the room itself. Doors or open walls led off to the bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and pair of offices the penthouse also held, in addition to a small library Arya was relatively certain was never used. She tossed her purse onto the dividing peninsula that separated the large room from the kitchen and promptly plopped down in one of the chairs.

"Arya, wait!" Sansa hissed, leaving the door open as she frantically recovered from the sudden entry, tugging at the loose knot on her robe tighter with clearly agitated hands.

"Why?" Arya prompted. "Hiding a monster in here? Doing some evil, rich science experiment?" She shivered dramatically. "Doing your _nails_?"

"No, Arya, you..." Her sister stopped, dropped her hands to her side, with fingers curled. Her face changed, anxiety and uncertainty melting away, leaving conviction in their place. "Arya, what are you doing here?"

Arya blinked. "I just came to check up on you." She sat up, hoisting herself to the edge of the chair as she peered around suspiciously. "Why? You're not _seriously_ doing something illegal in here, are you?"

"Why do you feel the need to check up on me?" Sansa demanded, shifting deeper into the room. She came to stand before the table in front of Arya with crossed arms. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, as I've _told_ you _several _times."

"Okay," Arya replied, shrugging. "I'm still worried about you, though. Last time, you said, and I quote, 'Lannisters have claws and teeth, and Joffrey won't let go of anything of his so easy.' You tell me that, and I'm going to worry. So what's the deal? You told me you'd tell me the next time we saw each other."

"Well, now isn't really the time," her sister announced, and made a show of looking over her bathrobe and at the large, complex clock hanging on the wall before turning back to Arya. After taking a step back from the table, forcing Arya to shift to maintain eye contact, she continued, "Why don't you go wait in the lobby and let me get changed, and we'll go to lunch."

"I was going to eat at the ballpark," Arya replied. After a moment, she added, "But whatever. Sure, I'll just wait out here. You _are _telling me, though."

"The lobby's more comfortable."

Arya paused, and glared at her sister. A thin bead of sweat broke away from Sansa's scalp, and Arya watched it slowly trickle over her temple before the elder Stark sister reached up and quickly dashed it away. Carefully, she considered her sister's disheveled appearance, anxious attitude, and apparent unwillingness to discuss what was on her mind. Sansa's light, nonchalant movements to draw Arya's attention to _her_, and away from... Ever so hesitantly, her mind tried to fit the jumbled puzzle pieces together. She felt her eyes widen as she turned to glance once again at the ajar bedroom door.

"I thought you said," she murmured lowly to her sister, with agitation, "that Joffrey wasn't here."

Sansa swallowed, her voice clearly trying to sound nonchalant. It was honest, though, "He's not."

"What, then, did you kill him and leave his body in there?" she blurted, pushing up from the chair and stepping out from the table. "Or..." She halted, and glared at her sister in horror and also admiring disbelief. "Oh, you didn't... you did _not _sleep with someone else..." Before Sansa's shooting hand could catch her, Arya ducked and leaped over the couch, making for the bedroom door, hoping she did not regret opening it to find her sister's horrible secret.

"Arya!" Sansa cried, hurrying after her but too far away to stop her. "Wait!"

She was still five paces from the bedroom door, ignoring her sister's protests, when it creaked with the sound of someone grasping it from the other side, and then it gradually slid open. Arya stopped dead where she was standing, and felt her jaws drop at the hulking man who stepped into the doorframe, his shoulders so wide that they nearly spanned from one side to the other. He was clad in only gray boxers, carrying a t-shirt and jacket in one hand with jeans and a belt draped over the other arm, and a scowl on his face that appeared more perplexed and unprepared than threatening. The morning dullness shining through the curtains slunk through his long, unkempt hair, landing and darkening on the cruel bruises permanently covering one side of his face.

Standing in the door from Sansa's bedroom was Sandor Clegane.

"What. The. Fuck."

"I can explain!" Sansa blurted, her hands falling lightly on Arya's shoulder.

The younger sister jerked away in horror, glaring between Clegane and her sister with poorly-concealed incredulity. Backing up, she ran into the couch and couldn't keep going, despite the gripping feeling that the walls were closing in on her. Sansa took one more step towards her, and Arya batted her away with frantic hands. "What the _fuck_, Sansa? _What are you thinking_?"

"I knew you'd be like this," Sansa sobbed, woefully close to tears, all of a sudden. She took a step back, closer to where Clegane stood frozen like a rookie before a major league baseball. "I _knew _you would react like this, that's why I didn't _tell _you!"

"Well, how the hell did you want me to react?" Arya screeched, jabbing a finger at Clegane as if she could spear out his eyes. "You're fucking sleeping with _him_?!" She jumped, as she realized what she was saying. "Sansa, this is Joffrey's fucking apartment, and you just let him _stay the night_, didn't you? Seven hells, what if he walks in _right now_? Sansa, what is _wrong _with you?"

"Arya, stop!" her sister pleaded, visibly trembling. Clegane's eyes had turned to her as she wrapped her arms around herself. No tears were leaking from Sansa's eyes and she still looked considerably stronger than Arya was used to, but she was clearly shaken. "Stop. You always do this, judging me before you give me a chance to explain myself! I'm done with it. I'm done! Shut up and listen if you want to know, but, otherwise, get out!"

Arya, startled out of her wits, recoiled and nearly fell backwards over the couch. She caught the back of it in her hands and held herself in place, still trying to convince herself she was imagining the setting before her. She blinked hard, and Sandor Clegane still stood, fierce but luckily caught off-balance on the threshold of Sansa's room. There weren't many things that scared Arya Stark, and frightening as he was, Sandor Clegane of them; however, Sandor Clegane standing almost naked in her sister's apartment—_which she shares with her _fiancé_, for goodness sakes_, she thought with a groan—sent slivers of fear raining all over her body.

While she fought hard not to lurch back into her tirade and upset Sansa, the other girl spent a moment decidedly looking at neither of them, and took a deep breath that lifted her shoulders several inches before dropping them back into place. Very calmly, or giving off the appearance of being so, she turned to Clegane and spoke with a steady voice. "Sandor, I think you should go."

"Fine by me," he growled dangerously. Arya had never spoken to him before, or heard any more of him than the occasional, grudging postgame interview comment, but his voice sounded just like she had pictured it would; gruff, cruel, rude, and obnoxious. _What _was Sansa thinking?

Sticking one of his legs and then the other into his pants as he hopped his way along the floor, he more or less made it to the door with a meager amount of grace, though more than Arya would have suspected for a man of his size. Both Stark sisters watched him go; Arya noticed that Sansa smiled and muffled a giggle with her hand while watching him go, and the younger sister's jaw dropped once again.

As he pulled open the door, finally wearing pants, Sansa called out to him, "Will you call me later?"

He froze on the doorstep, but didn't turn around. A grunt that may have been a belch or a firm "no" turned over his shoulder, but after a moment he replied, "You call me. When you have the moment. Don't take a risk."

With no further ado, he slinked through the door and slammed it behind him. Relatively slammed it—for a smaller man, it would have only been an enthusiastic close. Once he was gone, Sansa seemed to... almost wilt. Quickly she brushed fingers through her hair and folded an arm across her body, as though suddenly self-conscious about her appearance and her setting.

"I really wish you would have called before you came over," she said, not looking at Arya.

Arya gaped. "I _did _call. You didn't pick up. You were too busy doing that freak that just walked out of the door!"

"Don't call him that," Sansa blurted, pivoting towards her sister with a warning voice always as hard as her eyes. "_Don't_. He's not a freak."

Once again Arya was too confused and surprised to answer immediately. "Sansa... when did this happen? How, _how _did this happen? Do you have any idea who that giant-ass guy is? Do you know about his family, his past? Have you even looked at his face?"

"Don't you dare," her sister growled. It almost sounded as deep as Clegane's had, and Arya would have taken a step backwards were the couch not still at her back. "Don't you dare become one of these people that slander and scorn just because of appearances and families, like a... like a... Lannister! I'm sick of them! If you're going to be one of them, walk out of the door right now and don't come back."

"All right, all right," Arya murmured quickly, raising placating arms. "All right, I won't. I'm not slandering him. I'm just saying, seven hells..." She chuckled dryly, shaking her head. "I'm so confused. I came over here half-intending to make sure you weren't making a fool of yourself. I can't decide what that just was. On a list of everything in the world, it was near dead last on things I thought I would ever find... seven _hells..._"

"Why?" Sansa demanded. "Why did you not expect that?"

"You're _cheating_, Sansa! _You_! Mind you, I don't like cheaters, not at all, but I would never expect you to cheat! And you're doing it with... with Sandor Clegane? No—" She stymied Sansa's angry comeback with another raised hand. "—I'm not saying that to slander him now. We'll get to that later. First of all, I'm just shocked that you would let him anywhere near you. He's the type of person that used to frighten the hell out of you."

"Well, he doesn't. Not even a little. He would never hurt me."

Arya was hit with remembrance of making identical sentiments about Gendry, and shook her head to remind herself that there was nothing similar between the two situations. "I didn't say that. But, he's still a giant brutish asshole! He's rude, stuck-up, gets angry as hell—"

"How would you know that?" Sansa cut in. "You've never spoken to him."

With a heavy scoff, Arya said, "It's not that hard to make the assessment. He yells at people on the field, he swears and hollers at anyone who gets near him when he strikes out. _Or _when he hits a home run! He's completely wild, completely savage!"

"Maybe that's how he looks to you, but to me—"

"Sansa! Listen to yourself. This is Joffrey all over again. You going all googly-eyed and seeing amazing traits where there's nothing but shit, and _you _being the one who suffers in the end! And you're still in a fucking _relationship _with Joffrey. You're still engaged to be married, for gods' sake! Whatever is going through your head, I don't know how you could be so—"

"Arya," Sansa murmured, but even with a soft voice she managed to bring Arya's tirade grinding to a halt. With lethargic movements, the older sister pulled her robe tighter and plunked down on a chair. Her face was a torn mess of lingering shock and desperation, her eyes clinging frantically at hope as she gazed up at Arya. "You have to listen to me. You have to hear me out. If you don't give me a chance, Dad won't listen, at all. Robb will be worse. Mom won't even say anything. But if _you_ listen, maybe they will..." Sansa shook her head; there were the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Arya, please. This isn't what you think it is. You don't know anything. Let me explain. Hear me out. Please."

If Sansa hadn't looked so completely devastated, Arya wouldn't have given it a second thought where it concerned a hated member of a baseball team that wasn't owned by their father. Combined with Arya's knowledge of the secret misery that the past few years of her sister's life had been, she actually gave pause, and fell annoyingly into the forlorn trap Sansa had set. Even more irritatingly, it was her sister's reaction to the possibility of their family's reaction to her secret... _thing_... that ended up pushing her over the edge to hear what there was to be said; it was far too close to Arya's own fears about revealing what she had with Gendry. Aggravatingly, she could relate.

She released her pent-up breath. "How? I don't understand."

"It was sort of sudden," Sansa began. "Right after Joffrey... hit me. Right after that. Sandor runs in Joffrey's group, the one that goes out with him after games, on off days, just the general crowd that hangs around him. Which included me." She grimaced. "I've always hated the people that hung around Joffrey. They would ignore me or look down at me whenever I was around, and Joff would let them. I resented it, but not him. And I didn't want to make him angry, so I just let it happen."

"Not trying to be rude, here," Arya commented, "but you're telling me things I already know." She grasped the back of the couch and hopped over it so she could sit sideways facing Sansa. "Skip to the part where that..." She glanced towards the bedroom and decided she didn't need to call what she had seen anything. "...happened."

Completely surprising her, Sansa's face cracked a small grin. "Well, after Joffrey hit me, after you told me that I couldn't let him do that to me, he started to get angrier. He started to be rougher when we were alone, more aggressive when we were in public. I didn't know what to do. I wanted him to stop and I told him he was hurting me, but he just called me horrible things and kept at it. Worse, he would do it in front of the people that clung to him, and they wouldn't even care. Sometimes they would encourage him into doing it to me." Her grin slipped a fraction wider. "Except for Sandor. I _was _afraid of him at first; sometimes I'd catch him staring at me, and he wouldn't look away after I noticed. It was creepy, I thought. It made me uncomfortable. I said as much to Joffrey, actually, and he ordered Sandor to stop doing it, like a... like a dog." She flinched around the word. "And Sandor _did_. It was like he was only there to obey Joffrey's commands. Sometimes I think that that's _exactly _why he's there... to watch over Joffrey, to make sure he didn't hurt himself.

"I thought that he would be the worst of them when he started egging Joffrey on," Sansa continued, leaving no space for Arya to squeeze in a word. "The cruelest. But, instead, he almost seemed to defend me. When Joff started to get into one of his moods, drinking or otherwise, all of a sudden Sandor would step in and put an end to it. Joffrey speaks like Sandor's at his beck and call, but he's not... he completely calls Joffrey down when he wants to, and there's nothing Joff can do about it but take it. He... protected me. He made me safe again. When Joff got really drunk a few times, he would handle the temper until he passed out, and then he would take me and Joffrey home. Carry Joff up to bed."

"Very romantic," Arya muttered under her breath. "Hook up over your fiancé's drunk, passed out body..."

Sansa glared, but chose to ignore the comment. "I was still afraid of him the first couple times. He was drunk, too, enough to frighten but not enough to impair driving. Then, once, I tried to thank him, and he wouldn't let me, and he started to get angry with me when I insisted and asked him why he kept protecting me from Joffrey. It was so stupid, but I just knew, somehow, that he wouldn't hurt me. I just _knew_, Arya! He started to shout at me, and it was a little scary, but I wouldn't back down. I wanted an answer. And then..."

The older sister trailed off, and lifted her hand to her still-smiling lips, ghosting a touch across them. Arya, trying to wait patiently, nevertheless slapped the couch. "What? And then what?"

"It just... well, it kind of happened, Arya." Her sister looked so startlingly... happy. Sansa? This was truly a most foreign exchange and event. Arya hadn't seen something so unusual and unexpected since Gendry had sparked an unfortunately and unsettlingly identical spark in her own chest. "I don't know who started it. It's not important. I sang him something, and then we were kissing on the couch, and... oh, Arya, I was so thrilled and felt so _guilty_, it was such a blast!"

Arya only shook her head, her jaw beginning to open again. "I can't believe that happened that way. I seriously don't know if I can. He's still..." Failed of words, she raised both hands and gestured over one side of her face, trying to approximate Clegane's fearsome expression in the process. "How did you get past all of this?"

"It's not important," Sansa said, without a beat of hesitation. Arya's jaw _did _drop; Sansa, not caring about... What was happening? The gods had flipped the world completely over. "It doesn't matter. I thought Joffrey was pretty, and look where that landed me."

"Thanks for reminding me!" Arya snapped her fingers, crossing her arms over her chest and adopting a furious glare once again. "Look at you! Running around behind Joffrey's back! That's extremely dangerous, you know what his family's like! And what if he walked in while you were freaking doing it with Sandor Clegane? Mayhem! Anarchy!"

"Oh, don't be dramatic. He stayed at his mother's mansion last night, and whenever he does that he doesn't come back here until at least the next night. We were perfectly in the clear. It's not the first time Sandor has stayed over the night..."

"Gods!" Arya cried. "How the hell long has this been going on?"

"Like I said, since before you called," Sansa answered. The smile was back. "He might have scars. He might be pretty gruff, sometimes. Pretty rough, too. But... well, he would never hurt me. And I just..." She sighed. Contentedly. Arya nearly gagged. "I've actually never been happier. I can't explain it. Joffrey hasn't touched me in weeks, and Sandor isn't what I expected or really wanted, but what he is satisfies me. I like being with him."

"Um, except for the fact that you're _still fucking engaged_!"

Sansa waved a hand at her. "I told you, I'm easing my way out of it. It's not as simple as just giving him back the ring. I have to be careful, work at the right time. You can understand that."

"I understand none of this!" Arya growled in frustration. "You being attracted to Sandor ugly-fucking Clegane? You wouldn't even look at my posters of Arnolf Karstark because you said he was too _plain_."

"That was before. Before Joffrey. I have a different take on a lot of things now. Joffrey just wasn't who I thought he was."

_A blind cat could have told you that_, Arya thought. _A _dead _cat—with no eyes or ears!—could have told you that._

Aloud, she said, "You're right. I don't think Dad or Robb will hear three words past the point that you tell them you've been sneaking around with the star slugger of their interleague archenemy. The archenemy of every other team in the freaking league."

"What do you think?" The smile was finally gone from her sister's face, replaced by meek hope.

Arya sighed. _What do I think?_ She wrung her hands out, trying to decide how she felt about everything Sansa had just revealed to her. It had been exhausting just hearing about it, and she still had trouble believing that her uptight, fairytale-believing sister would ever remotely consider the possibility of being with Sandor Clegane, much less state that it was the sole reason for her currently and remarkably stable happy condition. She wasn't sure that she could get past the fact that she hated the guy as a baseball player—much less as the player that had ruined the save opportunity of her own significant other only the previous evening. All of the emotional tug-of-war was making her wish very much that she was with Gendry. She very much wanted to be with Gendry. But she was resigned to waiting until he was ready.

"I don't know what to think," she groaned, massaging her eyes. "I'm relieved you see sense, shocked out of... gods, Sandor Clegane... and upset you're still caught up with Joffrey. Overall, I'm just..." She scrubbed at her eyes, hacking on discomfort in her throat. "I need time to recover before I say _anything_. Keeping it a secret won't help you with the family, let me tell you."

"You're one to talk," Sansa retorted, her eyebrows crinkling. "What about you and your mystery ballplayer lover?" The crinkling turned to suggestive raises, darkening at the same time.

Arya froze, her heart skipping a beat. Unable to keep the surprise off her face, she blurted, "How do you know?"

"You as good as told me, when we were on the phone."

Indeed. She had caved far too easily. Gendry's claws had been dug far too deep into her, yearning to tear open her deepest feelings. They still were. "Well, how did you know he was a ballplayer? Then or now?"

To her annoyance, Sansa actually rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Arya. Like you would ever be with anyone who wasn't." She accentuated her statement with a grunt of blatancy.

Arya opened her mouth to snap that she very well could have been with someone who wasn't, but reluctantly let the words die on her lips as she realized that her sister might indeed have a point. After a moment, she grunted. "Well, _I'm_ not sneaking behind someone's back."

"Oh," Sansa said, her eyes widening in surprise. "Dad actually knows?"

The younger sister bristled. Unconsciously, her arms wrapped themselves around her upper half. "Well... no. But I meant that I'm not doing it with someone who's not the person engaged to marry me."

"Dad doesn't know."

Arya shrugged weakly, but shook her head to confirm her sister's words. "I'm not embarrassed or anything about it. I would tell Dad if... I just don't know how he would react. It's complicated, kind of, and it's getting more complicated by the day."

Sansa raised an eyebrow. Leaning an elbow against the back of her chair and resting the side of her head against it, she said, "It's that new closer, isn't it?"

"No. Yes." Arya cursed under her breath, and threw her hands up in the air. "Damn it, if _you _can guess it, how obvious can it be to Dad?"

"It was just a lucky guess," Sansa assured her. With brightened eyes, she added, "You're actually with him, now?"

A giggle escaped Arya's lips. She hated herself. "Yeah. It's a..." She frowned. "We're keeping it a secret."

"Why?"

The scowl deepened. "Because we both feel like we have to. We're not sure what would happen if Dad and Robb found out. On one hand, they've never made it seem like it would be a big deal if I was interested in one of their players, but I never _was _interested, before. If they actually learn that I'm _with _one of them... It's never happened before. How will they react? It could be bad. Harmful to his career, bad for me."

"Oh, come on, Arya," Sansa huffed, shaking her head. "It's Dad. Yeah, he looks all fierce and tough, but all he cares about is that we're happy. He let me date Joffrey, for crying out loud, a member of the King's Landing Monarchs. Granted, it was Robert Baratheon's son, but Dad did tell me once that Joffrey was nothing like Robert, and that it was a good thing. Still, having his daughter and Robert's son together seemed to tide over anything in between."

Arya didn't reply immediately. Several thoughts were running through her mind at once and she didn't know which of them she felt strong enough to voice. Finally, she settled on, "Gendry is Robert Baratheon's son, too."

The air in the room stood still for a moment, the two sisters caught staring at each other without the slightest hint of movement while the widespread news flash sank into Sansa's picture. Both of them seemed to gather their thoughts again, anew.

"Isn't that all the more reason that Dad would be fine with it?" Sansa asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I can tell you're much happier now probably with this Gendry than I ever was with Joffrey. Besides, if it's Dad's player, he must like the guy."

"He does," Arya said, but shrugged all the same. Fears crept back into her mind, despite the logic Sansa pushed forward, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward away the dim feelings. "I just don't know. Sometimes I think he even suspects something, and he doesn't look too pleased about it when I feel that way. I'm almost positive Robb does, but he doesn't say anything about it, to me _or _Gendry, and they're roommates, so I don't know what to think."

Sansa scoffed. "Robb and your man are roommates?" Arya's nod was meek. Sansa looked away for a moment before raising her eyebrows with a strange nod. "Well, I can't say that's the best move for your relationship, whether or not it's a secret, but whatever, I guess."

Considering what her sister meant by the statement, Arya blushed and frantically looked away. Whether or not that was actually the insinuation Sansa made... It _had _crossed her mind once or twice since the beginning of their relationship. Or more times than that. Nevertheless, it hadn't been an active part of her thoughts surrounding Gendry, as of yet. Thinking of it now led her to imagining the few shirtless images of him she held in her mind, the way he'd torn her off her feet and pinned her to the wall for their first kiss, the proposed feeling of his massive weight hovering above her, pressing down so heatedly but not crushing her in the slightest...

She blushed some more and tried to tilt her head so that her hair would hide it. Such was part of the reason she tried not to think about it; if she did, she was left woefully alone and bothered in all the wrong ways for a step that may have been a very long way off in their relationship. Searching for a distraction, the provocative images drew her attention back to the situation here and now.

Glaring at her sister, she said, "We're not talking about me. We're talking about you. And before I don't get the chance to mention it again, I _really_ think it's a bad idea for you to be having sex with someone else in your fiancé's bed. Really bad."

"It's not just sex," Sansa replied, conveniently sidestepping the part where it was in Joffrey's bed. "It's something more. I don't really know how to describe it. I _want _something more. It's not just a fling to drown out our demons, we _want _to be with each other."

Hardly believing the words leaving her mouth, Arya murmured, "_You_ want to be with _him_. But what assurance can that brute give you that he actually cares for you? I'm not saying that to be a bitch, I'm saying that because I genuinely have no idea what that creeping hulk thinks about. I do get the general vibe that he's usually in the neighborhood only for a drink and a slutty girl who wouldn't care two ways what he did to her."

"Never say that about him." The Stark ice had returned to her sister's voice; by the gods, she _was _one of them. "That is not him at all. Nobody understands; no one understands him. He talks about that late at night, after—"

"Okay, we're done with that line of that," Arya interrupted, raising her hands in surrender. "Fine, whatever, I don't get it. _Still_, this is a secret you're hiding, and if the fucking Lannisters find out about this, that you've been cheating on their golden little asshole, you can be sure they will make you pay, Sansa. They will hurt you."

"I'm being careful," Sansa replied. "Trust me, Arya, there's nothing I want more than to find a way away from Joffrey and to Sandor. I'll do it, somehow."

Arya spent a moment just staring at her sister and finally groaned, throwing her face into her hands. "I can't wrap my head around this, at all. It's a conscious effort not to hurl, right now, let me tell you. Ugh, Sansa... you and Sandor Clegane... I can't believe that you think—I can't believe that he makes you happy!"

Instead of barking back and kindling an argument, Sansa grinned. "I can't believe my little sister is all grown up and finally got a boy that she didn't hate to notice her."

Their conversation regressed back to an argument stage, but it was not the usual tooth-and-nails formation that the two sisters adopted; on the contrary, both of their voices had more tease to them than bite, even though the main topics of discussion remained about Gendry having hit his head very hard at some point and Clegane having love-potioned Sansa behind her back. Arya pressed more than a few more times that having an affair with a teammate of Joffrey's on a team that was controlled by Joffrey's family may have been a bad idea, but Sansa insisted that the situation would be handled for the better if she was only given time. Sansa made a valiant effort to convince Arya to tell their father and Robb—and Jon, to Arya's cringe—about her and Gendry, but Arya refused, still too uncertain and wary of their reactions. With more time, perhaps, just a little more time.

It ended up being only shortly before gametime when she finally arrived at the Dragonpit to join her father, the only excuse being that she had been spending some sister time with Sansa—to her father's shock; luckily, he didn't press, and she wasn't forced to formidably defend Sansa's secret. It was not an altogether interesting game. All of the spunk the Direwolves had shown the previous evening did not return. They were promptly shut out, the Monarchs crossing four runs over the first six innings. With one out in the eighth and a runner on second, Gendry was brought in to pitch, to horrific boos from the audience and the tightening of her father's lips. The first ball he delivered was lined into center for a base hit that scored the runner, but, to her vast relief and pride, he never gave the slightest hint of frustration in body language or expression, and struck out the next two hitters. And also did not throw the baseball at anybody, which was an equal relief.

After the ride back to the hotel, where they collected their luggage, it was off to the airport to prepare for their respective flights to Winterfell and Riverrun. The team, appearing dejected and tired, joined them in the terminal before too long, a series sweep weighing down upon them. Arya knew that it would good to have three days off for the all-star break. They would need to rest and recover, Gendry included among their number. The man in question exchanged quiet eye contact with her once upon first entering the airport, but looked away and made no move to look back thereafter.

The goodbyes to Robb and her father were quiet and simple, wishing them good luck for the All-Star Game. They made their way off to their own flight as the sun began to descend towards the horizon, and Arya sat by herself for a half hour or so, trying fruitlessly to make Gendry look at her, before their plane boarded. She sat with Luwin in the back of the plane, but even the conversations about various baseball categories that they usually might have struck up were absent today. Luwin, to his credit, seemed to know exactly how she was feeling; however he did so, he spoke in the rare moments when she wanted to break the silence and let her mull quietly when all she wanted was to think.

Gendry made no move to talk with her after they had landed, either, and did not offer a farewell before she started off to the airport parking ramp for the car she and her father had left. It was almost to the point where she began to feel frustrated with his lack of response, but the entire drive back to Stark Manor was spent reminding herself that she was patiently letting him gather himself before he addressed her.

No sooner had she walked through the door and shouted a greeting to her brothers and mother than did her phone begin to vibrate in her pocket. She whipped it free in a flash, ignoring the return calls she received from her family, and her heart fluttered as she saw Gendry's name flash across the screen.

Completely forgetting her luggage, she took the stairs three at a time to race into her room, receiving Nymeria's welcoming tackle and licks to the face at the same instant that she more or less slammed the door behind her. For once, she actually tried to fend off her dog's attraction, quietly explaining the reason for doing so, before tossing herself down on her bed and trying to calm the stutter in her chest.

Finally, lying on her back with Nymeria up and plopped across her body, she pressed the call line open. "Hi."

"Hi."

She drew out the pause, waiting for him to say something more. When the silence had reached a few moments, she finally sighed in disgust. "You're supposed to say something."

"I did."

"You're supposed to say something, like 'I called because...', or 'how are you doing'."

Gendry rustled on the other side of the line. "Sorry."

After a moment, she grunted. "That's all you're going to say?"

"I'm not sure what to say," he replied. It wasn't a frustrated tone that came through her phone; it was a cautious, observant one, pointedly testing every word for what it would do.

Struck with a pang of upset, she couldn't help the sting that entered her voice. "Then why did you call me?"

He didn't answer immediately. She imagined his thinking face, but for once didn't laugh at even the thought. After an unusually long pause, a breathy sigh hissed through the line. "Probably because I miss you. I wanted to hear your voice. I'm been waiting for you to explode on me for the past two days. It's eating away at me."

_He misses me_. It took her an absurd amount to time to get past the glee the tiny statement inserted in her, but when she had she said, "Explode on you? Why would I explode on you?"

Gendry shifted again. "Because of... when I threw at Baratheon." The name slithered through the phone with what might have been acid, or revulsion, but he quickly continued, "If your dad blew up on me, I can only imagine what you would say. I didn't really expect you to answer the phone. I thought you were pissed."

"I'm not," she responded. "Really, I'm not. Dad didn't say he yelled at you. He just said you had a talk."

"Well," he grumbled, "I guess it wasn't a great shout. But I felt pretty yelled-at when he was through. I felt like I was two feet tall and had just killed the king, or something."

"Maybe you needed it. If my father thought what you did was wrong..." She shrugged, and grudgingly admitted, "Usually what my father thinks is right, is right. So you probably deserved it. But I'm not mad at you. The little shit had it coming to him. It was worth a game just to stick it to him good."

His soft laugh, a rumble and a whisper, snuck through to her. "I'm really glad to hear you say that. Luwin never even addressed it, and the rest of the team acted like it never happened. Robb said a thing or two, but he's the captain, he's expected to. I was really worried this whole time that you were upset with me. You didn't approach me today, at all."

"I was waiting for you to come to me," Arya told him. "I thought that was nice of me, for a change, to give you time to decide what you wanted to say before assaulting you."

"As usual," he added with another quiet chuckle.

"I just punched you."

"No, you didn't."

"Well, I would have if you were in reach. I wish you were here." The words slipped out without her permission, but she felt no need to take them back. The hesitation from the other end of the line made her reconsider, though, and she quickly added, "So I could beat you up."

"That's not why," he snapped. "You want me there because you miss me."

"No, I don't." Was it even worth denying?

She was sure that he was smiling. "Whatever you say, m'lady, whatever you say."

"Shut up." There was no conviction behind her voice and she didn't plan on adding any. "You're stupid."

"You'd think, if that were true, I'd be aware of that by now." They let the conversation lull in the air for a moment before he changed the subject. "It was a rough series."

"It was. Not really what I wanted the team to show the world before the all-star break." He made a soft, uncomfortable sound that she nearly missed, and realizing what she had said she quickly continued, "But it happens. Everyone loses games at some point. I'm glad it was here instead of, say, at the very end of the season."

"Well, we're not there, yet," Gendry told her. "We don't know what that time will bring, either."

Another quiet descended. She found that she didn't mind these quiets, just listening to his even breathing, calm and collected. What would it have been like had they been a normal couple? She could have just driven him back to his apartment in her vehicle and they could have shared this conversation in person. Perhaps they could have had it; all it would take was a single sentence to Ned Stark, and they could cross the line. Again, though, uncertainty made her mind scream at her that it was a risk not worth taking—not yet. Still, she wished very much that he had been there, lying on the bed beside her, where Nymeria would paw over and make him most uncomfortable with excessive face licking. The power of her desire, for once, didn't shock her. Did Sansa really feel like this towards _Sandor Clegane_?

"I'm at the Great Keep," Gendry murmured suddenly. "With Luwin. I'm going to make a statement about my father and... everything. To the media, so that they might lay off of my back, finally."

Her eyebrows lifted, but she tried to hide all indication of surprise from her voice. "What are you going to say?"

She could feel his exhaustion through the sound of his sigh. His hesitance, too. "I don't know. I haven't prepared anything yet. I thought maybe you yelling at me would scramble it all into place in my head, but that didn't happen. I might just end up winging it, speaking from the heart. Even though that could end up disastrously."

"Or it could be the best solution." A second uncomfortable sound reached her. "I'm not mad, Gendry. I'm glad you listened to my father. You _never _listen to me, stubborn bull, so it's good you finally listened to someone."

"I do, too listen to you," he argued. "Just not when you're trying to convince me I'm an idiot."

"If you weren't, I wouldn't keep trying to do it."

She bit her lip as he sighed again, but his voice wasn't frustrated. "You're impossible." He exhaled into the line, and then said, "Luwin's got the none all-stars in class, tomorrow. Studying what happened in the first half, talking the teams, everything. I'll be busy. But the next day, the day of the all-star game... do you want to do something?"

"Do something?" she repeated. "What exactly can we do?"

"I don't know. Something together, like a date."

"Gendry..." she moaned forlornly, "where could we go? What could we do where we didn't run the risk of someone... Blah, I hate this. I hate hiding."

He let the moment settle before saying, "Do you not want to? Hide, I mean. Or... do you not want this..."

"I want this," she barked quickly, before he could say anything even more stupid. "In any way I can get it. I just wish we didn't have to hide. But I'm not ready to risk it. Winterfell's not a big place. I don't know where we could go where someone might not... if the freaking paparazzi's still out on you..."

"I don't know. I'll figure something out."

"How?"

"Determination," he said, as though he meant it completely. "I'll find a way." A muffled voice echoed in the background, and he murmured, "One moment" before the crackle of his covering the mouthpiece came through. She waited for a short moment before it disappeared, and his voice returned. "I have to go. The media's ready."

"Okay," Arya replied. Before she could stop herself, she quickly said, "I _would_ like to do something with you the day after tomorrow. Whatever you want to do, I'll do it with you."

"Great," Gendry said, and there may have been relief in the edge of his tone. "Good. I'm really looking forward to it."

Conscious that Luwin or whoever had spoken might still be in the room with him, she said, "Good luck. I'll talk to you later."

There was no battle over who would hang up first. The called ended and she put her phone down, directing her attention to scratching Nymeria's ears. Her beautiful dog licked her face happily, pleased to finally receive the notice she demanded, and for a few minutes Arya was content to sit peacefully with her dog and bask in the knowledge that she actually had a scheduled date with Gendry.

When Nymeria finally padded off the bed, for whatever reason or another, a sudden idea came to Arya, and she quickly followed her dog out of the room. A quick trip down the stairs and into the family room brought her before the large TV that belonged to the Starks. Bran was leaning back in one of the comfortable chairs, wheelchair sitting unoccupied next to him and his eyes buried so deep into a book that he didn't even look up when she entered.

Plopping herself down on the couch, she quickly flipped the television on and scrolled immediately to the local Winterfell news channel. As soon as it popped up, she found that she had been correct in her quick suspicion.

The screen showed a press conference table, the bottom line of the station reading "Waters to Address Allegations and Father". She had turned it on just in time to see Gendry walk across the short stage to the chair behind all of the set up microphones. Cameras flashed as he seated himself, modestly wearing a sweater and tan pants. He did not look particularly comfortable, but just as over the phone there was a collectedness about him. Luwin stood in the background, peering quizzically forward at the unseen reporters.

Gendry wasted no time with preamble. "_I won't be fielding any questions at this time. I'd like to address the recent article and reports about the identity of my father and its relation to my baseball career. For the record, I didn't know who my father was until I myself read the article and I was extremely disappointed to learn of it in said context. As to the claims that his identity influenced my standing with the Winterfell Direwolves, they are absolutely false. I have never received preferential treatment because of my father, nor has Ned Stark ever offered to me. I have never known who my father was. This incident has been a roller coaster of emotion for me, but I have reached a stage where I can accept what is, what's happened, and I can move along from it. I'm looking forward to putting it behind me and focusing on baseball after the all-star break. Thank you._"

Done as quickly as it had begun, Gendry stood and walked off the stage, ignoring a few buzzed questions reporters sent after him. Luwin stepped forward and issued a short comment that questions may be received at a later date, but otherwise concluded the conference and quickly followed Gendry out of the door.

Arya smiled and turned off the television. She hoped her father had seen the conference, but even if he hadn't it was very good of Gendry to put himself into a place of his own discomfort to appease the media and even defend Ned Stark's own honor.

She decided she would tell him as much on their _date_. An unfamiliar word, she admitted to herself with a sigh. But not unwelcome. With Gendry, definitely not unwelcome.


	17. Chapter 16

**16**

The following day was a long one for Gendry, spent being grilled in a mental capacity, something he was completely foreign to and unprepared for. For a portion of it, Cassel did a very good job of picking his brain for every pitch he'd ever thrown, which nearly broke his nerve enough to make him snap. Nearly. Once they had come back together for the entire team meeting, Gendry and Edric came together and rode out the drawling criticism and strategy by leaning on each other for support. Aside from the one incident with Arya—surprisingly, actually the catalyst that thrust them together—Edric had made himself nothing but the friendliest person in the world, and Gendry got along well with him. Through mutual effort, they managed to make it through the day feeling as though they hadn't learned a thing, although by the time the coaches released them Luwin managed to look rather pleased.

He woke the next day fantastically free, the plans about the time he would spend with Arya spinning in his head before he had even climbed from his bed. The all-star game would be played that night, but he found he had no desire to watch it, where he could instead be spending time with her. Aside from a luck text he shot off to Robb, he lounged his morning away in bed, catching up on sleep that had been overdue since the beginning of April. He was nearly thankful he hadn't been voted into the game, just for the rest he could finally receive.

Promptly at noon, he stopped thinking about baseball and instead directed his thought completely towards Arya. It took him an hour to walk into downtown Winterfell, to complete the final part of his plan, during which time Arya texted him, wondering when she could meet him. And where. He grinned stupidly at his phone and told her to meet him at his and Robb's apartment at four o'clock, to which she agreed, sounding suspicious even over text message. It only made him grin wider. His business concluded, the trip back to his place took considerably less time than the journey into the city.

He finished his preparations and then spent a while longer relaxing, rejoicing in the knowledge that he didn't have to worry about baseball for the rest of the day, rejoicing in the knowledge that he got to spend his evening with Arya. He almost didn't care, even, if they went somewhere where they would be seen. Almost. Whatever was happening to him, feeling-wise, was something that never had before. He was completely unafraid of it.

Around a quarter to four, he grabbed the pack he had prepared and went to sit on the steps outside of the apartment complex. It was only a few minutes later when Arya's car swung around the corner of the street a few blocks away. He watched it approach, checking his phone for the time; she was almost ten minutes early. That drew another grin.

Her vehicle swung into the parking lot across the street and parked. He watched her climb from the car, reach back into it for a thermos, and then close the door. It was a warm day and her choice of clothing reflected it: tan shorts matched a red top, leaving long expanses of arm bare. Her darkish hair was pulled back, wrapped into a bun on the back of her head, keeping it off her face and neck. The moment their eyes connected, they both smiled. There may have been a hint of a skip to her walk as she crossed the street to where he was sitting, unless he was imagining things. Which, in his state, was a distinct possibility.

"Hi," she said, as she saddled up, thermos swinging from one hand, her purse dangling off the same shoulder to the opposite side.

"How are you?" Gendry greeted.

"I'm pretty good. What are we doing?"

Gendry tapped the pack at his side. "I was thinking picnic."

"Gendry..." she drawled, sighing and shaking her head. After a moment, she glanced around the complexes towering around them, as if they had all-seeing eyes. "It's bad enough that we're doing this right here... we can't just go on a picnic where everyone can see."

"Don't you trust me?" Gendry asked quietly, crossing his arms aggressively and quirking an eyebrow.

"Yes. But don't you think—"

"No, I don't. You should just wait until we get to where we're going, and then you can start calling me stupid, as usual."

She shook her head some more. "I will, too. You'll deserve it. Am I driving, then, to your mystery location?"

"Nope," he said, and watched confusion bloom on her face triumphantly. Before she could point out to him that he didn't have wheels and that her driving would make more sense than them taking a taxi, he held up a hand to stall her. "Ye of little faith, once again. You wound me."

Standing, he pulled the backpack over one shoulder and took her hand as he jumped down the steps he'd been sitting on. She grinned as he did so, letting him drag her away from the stairs and around the edge of the complex, where a short road and sidewalk led back to the garage building where the few occupants of the apartment building and team who owned cars stored them. Whatever she was expecting to see, the squat little white vehicle propped on a stand right next to the marble complex wall clearly wasn't it. Her expression became surprised and then incredulous in a moment as they rounded the corner and caught sight of it, and then she abruptly burst out in laughter, clapping the hand that wasn't in his to her face in hysterics.

"What?" he demanded, yanking his hand from hers and crossing his arms over his chest again.

"Ha!" she blurted, watching him mischievously from behind her hand. "You bought a cheap motorcycle... You're one of those geeks..."

She descended into another burst of laughter, and he watched her without feeling embarrassed, though beginning to lean in the general direction. Her face lit up when she laughed, far different from the unhappy twist to her lips that often settled on her expression. Still, as much as he enjoyed her happiness, it was at least marginally less enjoyable when it was at his expanse. Besides, looking at his purchase, he didn't think it looked half as cheap as she seemed to think it was. The chipping paint didn't count...

When she had finally calmed down enough to look at him with no more than a smile, he asked her, "Are you finished?"

"Why did you buy a _motorcycle_?" she retorted, her lips still curved upward. Her hand dropped from her face, and she placed both of hers on her hips. "Don't you need a license for them, anyway?"

"I have one," he replied, fishing his wallet from a pocket and pulling the license from within to show her. "I got it in King's Landing, a while back."

"How?" Arya demanded. "Do you even know how to drive one?"

Gendry rolled his eyes and stuffed the license back where it came from, shaking his head. "Come on. I was a mechanic. Of course I know how to drive one. One day an old beater found its way into Mott's shop. Just got left there. I didn't have wheels, and it looked like it could still run, so I fixed it up and got the license. It only ran for me for like eight months, but I checked them out here and my license was still good. I was getting tired of forcing Robb to drive me anywhere I wanted to go or paying for a cab. Not very fast, mind you, but good enough to get me wherever I want to go."

She listened attentively, if still with the little grin on her face, and stepped forward to run a hand over its seat. "How much did it cost you?"

He told her; it wasn't a lot, and she nodded. "I haven't really spent any of my paychecks on anything yet. The money just sort of shot straight into the bank. I'm living low. I'm looking forward to having eight hundred thousand dollars to work with, come season's end."

Another barking laugh escaped her lips as she lifted her leg to slide onto the back of the seat, picking up the helmet dangling on the handlebars before proceeding to strap it on her head. "More like five hundred thousand, after taxes, hotshot. Where are we going?"

He grinned pleasantly, glad that he hadn't struck out on his date idea—not yet—and handed her the backpack to swing over her own shoulders before stepping over the seat in front of her, knuckling the helmet as he passed. "You're going to have to save me if I crash, now, since you're the one with the helmet."

"Blah. You could use a good knock in the head."

Shrugging, which earned a laugh from her, he chose not to respond, merely turning the vehicle's engine on and testing it for a moment before stepping onto the short foot platform and easing the accelerator. Arya quickly wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled herself against his back as he pulled out into the street, which was an added bonus of the bike. On the off chance that someone was looking out the window who he didn't want to see them, he chose the first side street he could and gunned it down towards the main roads of Winterfell.

From the pressure her arms presented around him as he neared certain streets, the route she was indicating took them towards the freeway. He grinned at her apparent confusion and flexing forearms when he didn't take the turns she obviously expected, swinging instead down several avenues that led them farther to the northeast of Winterfell, nowhere close to leaving the city limits. The helmet and the wind whipping past them made it difficult for her to say anything to him, and he made sure it continued to be so, so that she didn't get the opportunity to ask him where they were going before they got there.

Abruptly, on a turn from a busy city street to a multi-laned boulevard, the buildings fell away from them and they were climbing uphill. Brick and concrete were replaced by wood and green, trees rising around the road as the lanes decreased to one and then the left and right sides of the roads merged before the motorcycle. Gendry felt Arya's arms tighten around him, no-doubt as she realized where he was taking her. It was not an apprehensive squeeze, as far as he could tell; more like joyous surprise.

The hill they were climbing leveled out, surrounded by forest, and the road began to descend again. Gendry knew that if he followed it, they would drop back into urban Winterfell, where it wrapped around to the opposite side and completed a surrounding of buildings lining the hill. Instead of doing so, he slowed the motorcycle and put on his blinker as he approached a gated road leading off to the right. He had carefully scouted out the destination, anxious to find something that Arya would enjoy, and he believed he'd succeeded. Passing under the metal gate wrought with the word "Godswood", he followed the road as it tapered off from stone to dirt, taking a random fork from one of the six the road immediately became.

He was traveling slow enough now that Arya could pull him back close to her and whisper, "How did you find out about this place?"

"Robb told me about it, once," Gendry replied. "He told me your dad used to take all of you up here, said you liked it more than Sansa or your other brothers. I looked it up, and from there it wasn't that difficult to find. Giant, spacious, a place for people who want to be alone..." Making sure he was not about to hit anything, he twisted so he could glance over his shoulder at her briefly. "Sounds like the perfect place to have a secret date." He had expected the comment to earn a punch, but Arya merely smiled and somehow loosened her grip while squeezing even closer to him.

The description he'd given proved true; people were sparse in the Godswood. Once or twice he glimpsed cars parked off on little side areas, saw a few people and small children playing next to picnic tables in social areas, but otherwise most of the forest was quiet, empty, serene. Five minutes deep into the forest, he finally waited until he was comfortable with the lack of people and pulled off the path they were on to follow a short strut that ended in a small copse that opened into a wide green clearing. Across the way, several hundred meters distant, a family lounged on the grass. Otherwise, as the sun inched towards the treeline and the soft breeze gently rocked the branches above and around them, it was as peaceful in the woods as he'd hoped for.

Coasting to a halt, he killed the engine and propped the bike up. Arya climbed off before him and waited with a small smirk on her face for him. Grinning himself, he took her by the hand and drew her towards the clearing. A darted glance towards the family told him she would be uncomfortable with making their presence plain as day, but he drew her under a tree just on the edge of the clearing and stopped, and her lit face make him decide he had chosen very well.

"I haven't been here in awhile," she confessed softly as he pulled a blanket from the backpack she still wore and spread it on the ground. "We came here every week, a long time ago."

"It's very nice," Gendry said, pulling the straps of the pack off of her shoulders and plopping down on the blanket. "I can see why spending time here would become a regular thing."

"The dogs would run for hours." Arya settled herself next to him, crossing her legs where he was splayed out. She watched him, her stormy eyes dancing with content. "Shaggydog, Summer, Lady, Grey Wind, Ghost, and Nymeria. A long time ago." She shrugged, and a hint of content left her. "Now Lady's dead, and Ghost's off with Jon. We haven't brought them back for a while. Still, they would love it here, now. They always did."

He watched her watch the trees, then, for a long moment, watching emotions usually shrouded behind walls breach the exterior and flash across her features. It was probably as vulnerable as he'd ever seen her, but a vulnerability different than those she had shown him before. There was strength in her, still, a soft side of hers that was nevertheless _her_, tough and rough and proud. Leaning on an elbow, he let himself enjoy the moment before looking away out of respect to her private thoughts.

"I brought chicken," he announced, reaching for the pack. "Apples, some rolls, grapes, carrots... I'm not really sure what you like, so I tried to get a variation of fruits and veggies in here."

"It sounds fine," she told him truthfully, if her eyes and smile were any indication, and he believed her.

They feasted on the chicken, wiping the grease on each other and laughing. She devoured three rolls and he took a large bite of her apple, which earned him a smack on the arm _and _the neck. And a kiss on the cheek, which left him senselessly pleased with himself. An empty lunch pack later, she ended up out-eating him, a fact that didn't surprise him, but he didn't mind. Sometimes seated close enough that they were touching, sometimes leaning over the ground on opposite sides of the blanket, they looked over the meal they had arrayed and destroyed, laughing over it together. As they ate and long after, things came up that kept them in discussion. It was a useless picture book scene he had never thought he would succumb to, but there was never a dull moment between them and he held no fear that there ever would be. He thought that the day had turned out better than he had ever imagined it could be as they watched the sun creep down and finally touch the treetops. Fantastic colors slanted across the sky, painting a beautiful sunset to watch.

"You missed it," he observed, after perhaps the eighth or ninth time she turned her head to watch the trees again or listen to the waving of the grass and trunks. At her questioning look, he specified, "This place."

"Hard not to." She scooted a little bit closer to where he lied, a hand propping him on his elbow, so that her knee brushed against his arm. Reaching up, she pulled loose the bun of her hair, running hands through the stringy threads there. He watched her run her fingers through it to loosen the tangles, tempted to reach up himself and do it for her, but fearful to break the train of thought she went on to explain. "My dad always had a spiritual connection to this place that he tried to show to us. Mother never really saw it the way he did, though I'm not sure he ever wanted her to. She came from the South and didn't have the sense of the land like people in the North do. Dad always tried to show his kids what he saw, though, what he felt. Robb just never was into it and Sansa was just... a teenage girl about it. Jon could see it, though, whatever it was he was supposed to see. And me... I feel like I _belong_, when I'm in these trees." Her eyes fell on him as they traveled around the forest, and she grinned anew. She reached for the hand resting lazily on the blanket and opened it, stretching his fingers out playfully with her own and placing them back in his palm. "Jon and me. We loved this place. He would take me here, just the two of us, before... before he got drafted."

Gendry was sure she had been about to say something else, watching the light shift in her eyes and the slightest straightening of her mouth before it resumed its happy curve, but he said nothing, conscious of not wanting to ruin the mood. Arya herself seemed to focus all of her concentration and his hand and the dance their fingers were making, appearing much the hunter sitting cross-legged with a straight back, the trees and glimpses of colorful sky setting a pretty background behind the main, beautiful focus of the picture.

"Whatever happened to Jon?" he asked carefully. "Robb talks about him all the time, and you do, but you've told me there's a sort of distance in that part of the family."

Her fingers froze on his, her eyes locking on his palm. There was no visible rigid wave that overtook her body, but he still mentally cursed, fearing he'd just done the thing he had been very afraid to do. Quickly, he added, "That's not my business. I'm sorry I asked."

She looked at him, shaking her head, and he was relieved to see her grin return in small part. "Don't be sorry for that. It's not really a secret, anyway."

He shrugged. "I don't know it."

"I mean, it's not something we go out of our way to keep quiet. It's just..." She tilted her head to one side and then brought it over to the other, her hair drifting around her face attractively. "It's just we don't talk about it. It's some unspoken thing in my family, if that makes sense. We haven't really said anything about it at all. Since it happened."

Arya fell silent and Gendry patiently watched her, forcing himself not to ask her to elaborate. He wanted to—wanted to know what had passed between her brother, his roommate's brother, and the rest of the family—but he also realized that she would tell him, if she told him at all, only when she was ready to. When she trusted him enough to do so, if ever. Watching her lost in thought was a welcome alternative anyway, him being happy to analyze her features as she gave her mind ample opportunity for concentration.

Over a long moment, he twisted his hand into hers, twining their fingers together, offering her a reassuring smile when she looked up at him. She didn't return the happy gesture, but after a deep breath she began to talk. "It was about six years ago, when I was thirteen. Bran was ten. Jon and Robb had both just been drafted, and we were celebrating a weekend together while their agents were working with the teams about contracts. Well, mostly just Jon... Dad sort of forced Robb to accept the contract he offered..."

They shared a soft laugh. As it died away, she scooted closer again and slid her hand underneath his arm to force him to sit up. When he did so, bringing his legs around to approximate the cross-legged position she was fond of while leaning against the tree, she turned her back to him and pressed against his body, leaning against his chest. With both of her arms, she pulled his around her and ran her thumbs across his skin. He grinned, but he didn't think she noticed.

"It was one of the only times our family got together with the Baratheons," she continued tentatively, resting her head against his shoulder. She paused, as if to gauge his reaction, but he gave none. Robert wasn't his father; not then. It didn't matter that she had met him, if he hadn't known it. After a moment, she kept going. "And the Lannisters. They came up to Winterfell together, to see us. Dad and Robert were old friends, like you know... Robert was married to Cersei Lannister and her twin brother Jaime had always been a rival of Robert and Dad. Still, they all tried to be friendly, since their rivalry was just on the field." She shrugged. "Supposedly.

"I didn't really like any of them. Cersei is a plain bitch. That's the only way to put it. When she was up here, she hit Sansa's dog, Lady, and refused to apologize for it. Joffrey is a snobby prick, too, but Sansa thought he was the world. _That _was really annoying. Robert would get drunk every night, and Dad had to keep him away from the families. That took its own toll. None of them liked me... Cersei called me something nasty to my mother and Joffrey picked on me whenever I was around. I just tried to avoid them when they were there, but sometimes it was difficult.

"One evening we were playing a makeshift baseball game in a park. It was the closest thing I was having to fun the whole week. Robb was catching Dad on the mound. I was playing second and Jon was in left field, for whatever reason. Bran was at third base." She stopped talking for a moment. He felt her chest constrict as she swallowed and listened to several smooth breaths enter and leave her body. "Jaime Lannister was at the plate, the recently retired man who had almost a thousand more hits than anyone else in the history of the game. Whenever he matched up against my father in their playing days, it was a battle to the death. They were out there on that diamond to have fun, but you looked at them and it was almost like they were back in the old days, playing for a World Series or something...

"I don't remember why, but Jon said something in left, and Bran turned around to talk to him. They were laughing, not really paying attention, and Dad was so locked in on the pitch that he didn't notice." He closed his arms around her tighter as she released another shuddering breath. "Lannister swung and hit the fastball my dad threw right at Bran. His back was still turned to left. It struck him right below the neck, right in the vertebrae. He just... crumpled..."

Gendry released the breath he didn't know he'd been holding, trying to loosen his tense grip around her without letting go, without making her think that he was trying to pull away. He had known that her younger brother was paralyzed, but hadn't known how. From what little he'd gathered about her and her family, he was slightly surprised to find that she could talk about what had happened so easily. He didn't think that he would have been able to reiterate the story with nearly as much stoicism as she'd shown, and he had no personal connection to it, aside from the bond he'd mindlessly made with the Stark family.

He held Arya while she recovered enough to continue. It didn't take long; she didn't tremble or shudder again. "The ball was hit so hard that it shattered two vertebrae. He was in a coma for weeks. Mom was vigil at his bedside, she shirked everything else. She yelled at Dad when he tried to pull her away for rest or food. She yelled at Jon, who she didn't like, anyway, because he wasn't her son... Screamed, more like. Said it was his fault, said if they hadn't have been talking, if Bran had been paying attention to the plate like he should have been, it wouldn't have happened. Jon was shocked about the whole thing, he completely blamed himself. That was plain for the world to see, but Mom wouldn't let it go at that."

She sighed, thumping her head against him. "Jon left before Bran woke up, and Mom told him never to come back to their home again. Jon listened. He went on to his career, still blaming himself, soared through the minors, and has barely left Castle Black since." Her hands dropped to the grass around them, peeking out from under the blanket, and she tore tufts of it out to throw away on the wind. "I really miss him. I barely ever see him anymore. He was... he _is _my favorite brother, but he doesn't come for Christmas or for any other reason.

"Bran was paralyzed from the waist down. He'll never play baseball again. That broke Dad's heart. Still, he can live a long, healthy life, all the same. Jon can't come back to Winterfell, though, so long as Mom's there. Jaime Lannister apologized sincerely. Cersei didn't. The Baratheons and Lannisters left the next week for King's Landing again, and that was the last time I saw them, except for Joffrey now and again, because of Sansa, until Robert died. I didn't miss them. It was nobody's fault, what happened to Bran... just a freak accident... but it's still horrible." She shook her head. "Dad said that Bran was better at that age than anyone he'd ever seen. Even Robb. Even Jon. He won't get the chance to prove it, though."

The story ended on a somber note and they rested in silence for a time. Gendry thought about Arya's little brother and her older brothers and reflected on the sadness of Bran's injury. The career Bran could have had... the _fun _Bran could have had... a twinge of agony flicked his heart; he knew what it was like to want something and not have a chance of getting it. He also knew that his pain was nothing compared to the pain of the paralyzed Bran Stark. In his head, to whichever gods may have been listening, he said a prayer.

After a while, Arya untangled his arms enough to turn in his lap, drawing herself up and sitting in a compact ball between his legs, face-to-face. "I've never told anyone that, before. I've never talked about it to anyone who wasn't there."

Gendry watched her observing him, her face completely expressionless and her hands motionless in her lap. "Thank you for telling me. Do you regret doing it?"

"No," she answered after a pause. "It feels sort of good to get it out after so long just thinking about it. It feels good to trust someone. To tell them. I don't trust very easily. I don't know if I trust anyone completely, except for you."

"You trust me completely?" he repeated. He couldn't help the smile that began to spread across his face.

"Of course. I couldn't tell you everything I just told you if I didn't trust you completely." He froze as she lifted a hand to his face, running only her fingertips down the side of his temple, over his cheek, to his chin. They stared straight into each other's eyes the whole time, unsettling grey clashing with stormy blue.

When her hand brushed the side of his neck she threaded the other one around it and pulled herself to him. His lips met hers eagerly, arms lifting her up to straddle him as their kiss deepened. Her shirt rode up in the motion and his hand brushed across the warm flesh of her lower back. She shivered in his arms, her mouth opening with a quiet gasp, and he stealthily slipped his tongue through the opening in her defenses. The war was on, but she'd already committed an irreversible mistake, and when it was clear that she was losing no matter how hard she fought she unexpectedly surrendered, countering in small part by twisting their bodies away from the tree and pressing him down on his back.

It ended sooner than he would have liked, flushed faces leaving each other slowly, but the grin on her face warmed his heart almost as much as their kiss had. She swung her leg from around him and joined him lying on the blanket, looking up into the sky. The sun had vanished, and the colors of the summer sky were receding, the darkness of twilight beginning to close. A few bright stars twinkled out, blinking at them where they lied.

Arya curled into him, wrapping an arm across his chest and making a contented sound. "Let's play a game. You tell me a secret and I'll tell you a secret."

He chuckled, shaking his head against the ground. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Sure it is," she replied, propping herself up on an elbow to look at him. "I don't want to hide anything from you. I want you to feel the same way towards me."

Gendry lifted his head off the ground to look at her, surprised by the weight of her admission. By the indifferent look she returned, either she wasn't aware of the force of what she had just said or she had no reservations about being so open to him. Having to wet his lips before replying, he told her, "I do, too." She smiled, and he let his head fall back to the blanket. "Fine. You go first."

"I just told you a _big _secret," she protested. "_You_ go first."

Gendry sighed, shifting the arm she had laid on to pull her closer. He wracked his brain for some secret of his that he could share with her, something that would be interesting enough to earn one of his own. "I got into a bar fight once."

"What?" she scoffed, half amusement and half chastising.

"I was roped into one," he clarified. "The guy next to me threw a punch, and the guy on the other side of me took offense to it, for whatever reason. I ended up having to throw a couple, got cuffs slapped on me, got kicked out of that bar for life. No arrest, though. It wasn't a big deal. I think it was more fun than anything else. I wouldn't want it to happen again, though."

"Wow," she said, but left it at that. It was quiet again, for a few moments, and then she hissed a breath. "I tore up that business card Targaryen gave you."

He grunted. "That's not a good secret. Go again."

"That is, too, a good secret! I was really jealous of her, because you were slobbering all over her while I was standing right there. Well, jealous because you were slobbering all over her, period." She looked away; it was dark, but he thought she was blushing. "There was no way in seven hells I was going to let you call her after that."

"I was _not _slobbering over her," Gendry remarked.

"Yes, you were. You and Robb, both. It was disgusting."

"You're only saying that because you were jealous."

"Well," she blabbered, fishing for words, "you were super jealous of Edric that one day."

Gendry scoffed, shaking his head at her. "You fucking forgot I was _there_ for little Neddy Dayne. Of course I was jealous, I waited for like an hour and you were oblivious to me wanting your attention. The reporter _asked_ me for that interview. Besides, she's not what I wanted. You're what I wanted. And Edric fit your profile exactly."

"And what exactly is my profile?" Arya asked him. Her eyes had lit up at his comment about her.

"Baseball player." He hesitated, searching for something else to add to it, and finally shrugged. "That's it. There is nothing else."

She stared at him incredulously for a moment, propped on an elbow, and finally surprised him by breaking into another smile and setting herself back down on the blanket, drawing herself close into him. "It's your turn. Secret."

After spending a long moment puzzling over her strange reaction, he perused his mind for something else she didn't know that was worth telling her. It took going back several years in his memory for him to find something he thought fit the profile, and he shifted his back uncomfortably as he remembered the event. "I stole a loaf of bread one."

Her head twisted up sharply, to look him in the eye. "Really?"

He nodded. "Not because I wanted to. I was starving, and the orphanage's food stores were low. Their money had stopped, for some reason, and they were threatening to shut down. It started up again a few days later, but in the interim all of us kids were really hungry. I went to a store with some of the kids, and it was there, and I was hungry, and I wasn't _quite _to the age where I thought stealing was bad no matter what. So I took it." He tried to shrug again, but it was a little difficult with her lying literally on top of him. Not that he minded. "It still bothered me for a while. I've always meant to go back to that store and pay for that bread. I always said I would when I actually had the money to spare, but I never did, living in King's Landing." He paused, and then quirked an eyebrow in the dark with the rising of new thoughts. "I do, now. I'll have to go back and pay for it. I should have when we were in King's Landing for the series, but I never thought about it. Next time I'm there... I'll make it a point to go and pay for that bread."

The light was all but gone, now, and they spent a while in silence, staring up at the emerging stars in the night sky. It was very nice, he thought. He could have gotten used to it, lying there with Arya... if he wasn't already. At one point, he turned his eyes away from the sky to watch her, instead, and they never left her hair and face again. She was too beautiful, lying against him in the dusk, perfectly relaxed and curled up into his side, managing to look powerful and independent at the same time.

Just as he was about to nudge her and point out that it was her term, words blurted from her mouth. "Sansa's sleeping with Sandor Clegane."

He blinked. A few seconds later, the words sank in. "What?!"

"Shh!" she spat, lifting the hand off of his chest to cover his mouth. They both glanced across the clearing towards the family, but the parents and children were making to pick up their belongings and leave for the night, barely visible in the dim light, and no indication was given that Gendry had been overheard. Turning back to him, her eyes were wide with surprise. "I shouldn't have said that. I don't know why I said that."

"Your sister," he began in reply, feeling unsettlement and disgruntlement build in his chest, "is _sleeping _with that brutish son of a bitch that hit the home run off of me?"

It took him a moment to realize that he had half-sat up, pushing her upwards with him, and that she was trying to push him back down. He let her do so, still running the words she'd said through his head, as she frantically whispered, "I wasn't supposed to say that. _Please_, please don't tell anyone, Gendry, please. Sansa would kill me, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone."

Firmly back on the ground, he stared at her, his mouth hanging open conspicuously. "Your _sister _is sleeping with that motherfu—"

"Yes," she said quickly, cutting him off. "I know, I was shocked, too. I know, it's unthinkable. I know, I know."

"Does she even _realize _who he is? Has he seen his face? I mean, even _you_ don't have that bad of taste... Ow."

He rubbed the spot on his chest where she'd hit him as she scrunched herself back down into his side. "I told her all of the same things, but, for whatever reason, she seems to like him a lot, his bruises and all. Don't ask me why, because I couldn't understand it. I can't understand it."

"She's cheating on Joffrey Baratheon with Sandor Clegane," he said, tasting the words out himself. With a cringe, he shook his head. The memory of a shattered bat and the ball sailing over the outfield fence made him shake his head in disgust and loathing. "I don't know which of them I dislike more. That is... messed up. I can't even describe that." He shook his head.

"That's what I said to her," Arya replied. "I don't know why I told you that. I was thinking of secrets, and it just slipped out." She peered up at him again. "You can't tell _anyone_, Gendry."

"Relax." He poked her side, and she flinched with a quiet squeal. "_I _know how to keep a secret. Unlike some people."

"You had me unawares," she responded, and then looked away quickly. Her voice was meeker when she added, "It's not my fault, what you do to me."

The statement pleased him so much that he pushed away everything else he had to say about how much he didn't like Sandor Clegane. Or the little son of a bitch who he had had the misfortune of discovering was his half-brother. He decided it was rather fortunate that he had not had the opportunity of knowing Joffrey as well as Arya had the chance to love Jon. The feelings between the two sons of Robert Baratheon would not have been nearly as friendly, Gendry decided.

"I don't like famous people acting better than everyone else," he said in the dark, glancing at the stars as he took his turn in their game. "It always annoyed me back in King's Landing, where I thought if I just got my shot at _something_, I could be just as good as them. People like..." He swallowed, and grudgingly added, "Robert Baratheon. Not people like Robb, or your dad. They act like normal people when they address you, no matter who you are. I like that. I respect that. I respect them. I hate people who think they're better than everyone else just because they can throw a ball hard, though, just because they were born into money."

After a few moments of quiet, Arya took her turn. "I like country music."

Gendry blanched. "Anything but that... gods..."

"What?" she demanded. "It's not _all _bad. Some of it is super annoying, I'll give you that, but there are a lot of songs that sound really cool or have a really interesting message."

"I think you're confusing country music with just about anything else."

It was her turn to grunt. "Some of it _is _good. I like all types of music, really, if they're not about something stupid."

"Blah," he mocked, shaking his head at her. It was difficult to hide his grin at the same time. "I doubt that. If it doesn't have to do with baseball, you won't give it a second glance. You don't like anything else."

"I do too like other things besides baseball!" she growled, taking her head off his shoulder so she could replace it with a punch.

He couldn't help but laugh, half at her obvious mistruth and half at the furious pout she shot at him. "Like what?"

"Like..." She threw her hands in the air, murmuring nonsense under her breath. "Art. Architecture. Nature. My dog. Don't laugh at me..." He cringed through his chuckles at her exasperation, expecting another punch, but instead of throwing one she merely ground her face into his shoulder until all he could see was her hair, mumbling unintelligibly.

He let her hide herself, holding his laughter in while tickling her side. After a long moment, he peered down at her. "You coming out?" She shook her head into his shirt and he laughed again. He brought the arm that was pinned beneath her around to scratch her back, dragging his fingernails in senseless patterns. Unprompted, he began to speak, soft and true. "I like cars. I like working on them. It's mindless, after a while, and I can just think about anything I want to. I never owned a pet. I've never been able to do anything well except throw a baseball. When I was younger, I was always bigger than people my age; I always got picked on for it. I went to a big school in King's Landing. I had a lot of enemies, there, and only one or two friends. I didn't have much going for me in those days. When all of the other guys my age cared only about sex and sports, I was trying to care about something, at all. Girls would be interested, and then I would just..." He thumped his head against the blanketed ground in pained remembrance. "I don't know. They would give me the time of day and I would just fuck up. Say all the wrong things. _Not _do all the right things. For them, at least. When I was myself... they didn't want to be around me anymore."

Some time in the next minute he remembered that he had actually been talking to someone, and glanced down at the girl in his arms. She was no longer hiding; her head was turned, her cheek resting atop his shirt. Her eyes, barely visible in the starlight, were watching him, neither judging nor empty. Simply watching him. For a long time they simply stared at each other. His hand continued to trace patterns on her back; hers on his chest continually wrapped itself in and detached itself from his shirt.

Her eyes finally fell from his to his lips. She didn't move, only cleared her throat. "Sansa was the beautiful one of my family. When I was in high school, the girls called me 'Horseface'. I hated myself, hated my appearance. Boys always looked at me and said, 'Wow, she's nothing like Sansa.' Never to my face, but it got back to me. I hated myself. I hated my sister even more. To compensate for not wanting to be like my sister, I tried to be exactly like my brothers. The girls at school made fun of me because I talked about baseball and sports so much." She hesitated and he could feel her biting her lip, even if her face was turned so he couldn't see it. "My first kiss was with the football captain, just so I could show people that I liked boys the same as them. It was in the middle of the hallway during a passing period and he avoided me like the plague for the rest of high school. No boy wanted to be near me, after that. The girls made fun of me more. It was Halloween of college before my second kiss..."

She looked back up at him, he saw, but he wasn't looking at her, anymore. Her heart had just been bared to him, more so than anything she had said previously. His arm tightened around her involuntarily as he seethed over how horrible she had been treated. He wanted nothing more than to destroy every person who had ever called her ugly. Instead, he replied, "My first kiss was with a girl who weighed twice as much as me. It was horrible, and in the back of a party, and I was half-drunk and completely out of my mind. She was the nicest person I'd ever met, but she just never shut up. I guess that was a blessing for me; she'd never let me get a word in so that I could say something she would hate, like happened with other girls. I never saw her again, after that, and didn't want to. The next girl I kissed was in a bar, and I nearly crushed her. Then I was sort of afraid of hurting anyone I got close to for a year, and then I wasn't in the mood to meet anyone, at all. I had nothing going on for my life. Just a lousy job in a shop, and pick-up baseball in the street." He turned with a smile to watch her again, and reached down to swipe a lock of her chocolate hair behind her ear. "Until I met you."

Her hand traced the hard muscles of his chest up to his face, stroking his chin with two fingers. He found it very difficult to breathe, for some reason. "You were the first person ever to accept me for who I am. I trust you completely. I've never trusted anyone else in my entire life, the way I trust you. You make me happy. I don't know why."

Gendry swallowed, appalled at the overflowing emotion pounding through him. He reached up with his unoccupied hand so he could take the one of hers on his face in it, pulling it away so that he could roll over her without hurting her. He hovered with a foot of space between them, trying to express the true way he felt for her by staring into her eyes. "All I want is that happiness. I would do anything for your smile."

Arya gave it to him, a wide beam that made angels sing and demons strikeout. Her arms came up to twine around his neck. "I want you to be Gendry. That's all it takes for you to make me smile."

He kissed her then, soft and sweet, her arms ripping him closer so that she could deepen it, and their talking was done for a long while after that.

By the time she finally sat up, the two of them somehow having flipped over without Gendry noticing, the sun and its light had completed vanished behind the treetops. The family across the field was gone and the hour was growing late. Arya smiled at him some more as he folded up the blanket, and wordlessly slipped her hand into his as they made the short walk back to his motorcycle. He treasured the way she clung to him as they trudged back down the hilly road and into Winterfell.

As they drew closer and closer to his apartment building, he found himself wishing more and more that it was farther away, wished that he could spend longer with Arya, longer with her in his arms. Too soon, even trying to take a longer route than he'd left the urban expanse on, he pulled the motorcycle around a corner, zipping along the quiet street beneath the lampposts, and the apartment complex of the team rose before them. He pulled around the drive, going deeper than where he'd originally parked it, and pulled it underneath an overhang of the garage complex that would at least provide partial protection against any inclement weather.

They didn't hold hands this time, as they walked back around to the front of the complex. As they rounded the building, he prepared himself to make a goodbye he really didn't want to make. Turning to do so, though, found him speaking to empty air. Instead of stopping, Arya began to march up the steps into the apartment complex, glancing back inquisitively at him when he didn't follow.

He was dumbfounded, staring at the bottom of the stairs while she climbed them, staring up at her stupidly. _What's she doing?_ he thought frantically, elated that she was walking into the building, to spend more time with him, and ever so slightly panicked about what it meant. _You're overthinking this. You have to be._

So, under that assumption, he followed her up the steps, worrying far less about people—teammates—who might see them walking through the team apartment complex together. They kept a distance between them that may have been explainable had anyone walked by and asked, but they lucked themselves into passing no one whatsoever. The elevator ride was silent. When he chanced a glance at her, she was holding the elbow of her right arm with her left hand casually, a strange, maniacal grin splitting her face. She wasn't looking at him.

When they reached the rooms he shared with Robb, he unlocked the door and let her step in before him. He flipped on the lights, dropping his keys and the backpack onto the table next to the door and letting her lead him into the sitting room. She sat down on the couch that had once been his bed, folding her legs up beneath herself, and smiled at him as he sat down beside her.

"The game's on, I'm sure," she said, gesturing nonchalantly at the television as he picked up the remote."It's not too late. Maybe Robb's still in."

He doubted it, but he turned the television on and quickly found the sports channel broadcasting the major league All-Star game. The game popped into vision, and the scoreboard graphic in the upper corner showed the National League, the Direwolves' league, leading the Westerosi League eight to two with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning. A member of the Crakehill Boars was hitting against a pitcher from the Oldtown Wizards.

Arya quirked as she saw the score. "Good, a probable win for the National League. That means you'll have home-field advantage for the World Series."

He couldn't tell if she was joking or not, but he didn't feel the need to point out that there were still a lot of games to go. He'd be lying if he said that playoffs hadn't been heavy on his mind lately, especially after Luwin's intensive therapy sessions of the previous day and the blowup in King's Landing. Arya knew as well as he did that it was a long way to the finish line, but he didn't doubt that she itched for a Direwolves run as much as he did.

They watched the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth, at which time the television's bottom line informed them that Robb had gone 0-2 but with an RBI. Hallis had singled in his only at-bat, and Jory had thrown a scoreless fifth. All three were out of the game by the time they turned it on, but it was good to see that the Direwolves had represented themselves with success. The game concluded with the same score and it was finalized that the National League Champion of the playoffs would have home-field advantage for the World Series.

Half-heartedly, Gendry perused the channels to see if there was anything else to watch, observing Arya's features to see if anything interested her. Nothing popped out at either of them, though, and so Gendry switched the television off finally. Setting the remote down, he wondered what came next. He wondered what Arya expected to come next.

Even as the thoughts plagued him, she leaned her head against the back of the couch and turned to him. "I really enjoyed our picnic."

That was the line to gear up for the end of the date. He wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to sigh in relief. "I'm glad. Me, too. I enjoyed our secrets game even more. I'm really happy that you trust me."

"How could I not?" she replied honestly. Her hand fell onto his at their sides, and their fingers intertwined once more.

They both looked down at their hands' embrace and then up at one another again. Licking his lips, aware of how much heat was radiating off of her body, he leaned forward, ducking and tilting his head to kiss the corner of her mouth. She let him do so motionlessly the first time, but the second time she turned her head to capture his lips with her own kiss, turning her face to better devour him. A sigh let the air in his chest escape without a sound as she threaded her fingers lightly in his hair, not enough to hurt. He let her navigate his head where she wanted it, taking the kiss how she liked it, unable to protest even had he wanted to. It was a soft sensuality, completely unlike the blazing need of the kiss they'd shared against the door. It was something completely different, something more emotional, more sensitive, more satisfying.

At length, his lips left hers and drifted down to her jaw. Her fingers tightened trivially in his hair, her chest exhaling as he touched his mouth to her chin and then meandered down to her neck, finally eliciting a tiny groan from the deep of her throat, a sound that sent his blood boiling despite the sluggish passion of the moment. When she pushed back at him, pulling his head back enough to run her hands over his chest and shoulders, he let her. Despite himself, a groan of his own snuck its way out when she teased his mouth with a flutter of kisses just beyond the reach of his lips. It wouldn't have been nearly so bad if there had not been a triumphant smile on her face the entire time.

When she stood up, he knew what was happening, and didn't have it in him to stop it. Not when it was like this... There was no lust, no frantic demand coming from their bodies for immediate satisfaction. This was something far quieter, far more sensitive than he ever would have expected to get from her, a different urge leading to the same place, but along a road that was so different, so much more intimate, so much more _perfect_ than any other route they could have taken.

Still, he was no less aroused.

She took him by the hand and pulled him to his feet, backtracking towards his bedroom. Their smiles were identical, confident and trusting and surrendering. The lights were off when they entered and they were left that way. They didn't even make it to the bed before their arms were back around each other, their kisses slightly more powerful if no more urgent.

Gradually, her hands slipped beneath the hem of his shirt and she slid it upwards, allowing her hands to linger on the hardened, rugged muscles of his chest on the way. Once it had left his body he showed her just how fair turnabout was, showering her neck with a peppering of affection to keep her from noticing that he'd pulled her own shirt up to her shoulders. When he left her to pull it off, she lingered only long enough for it to be tossed away before she walked into him, causing them both to fall backwards on the bed.

There was a quiet scuffle for dominance on the bed; her speed may have won had he been unprepared, but in their close embrace strength took the victory, and he ended on top. As soon as her body relaxed into his touch, resigning itself to the fact, he brought his hands up her sides, watching her face as fingertips brushed over the surface of her bra. She gasped when he cupped her breasts through the thick fabric and again when he kneaded them softly. The slight arch of her back was all he needed to snake an arm beneath her to the clasp, although more than one try was needed to actually unclasp it. Arya glared up at him with a mixture of amusement and impatience as he fuddled with it, finally managing to detach the two clips from one another.

They collectively pulled and pushed the bra up her arms and carelessly off to one side. He took a moment to gaze down at her bareness, while she stared back, defiant and unashamed while just a hint diffident. She was small, lying beneath him, straddling him from beneath, gazing up at him wondrously, skinny and slight and so fragile at the same time she was so strong. He shook his head to himself, looking at her.

"What?" she demanded, making to cross her arms.

He caught them and pinned them back down to her sides as he dipped his head to kiss her. "I was just admiring how beautiful you are. Considering our position, I think that's allowed. And, if not, I don't really care."

Her mouth twisted against his, fighting the grin, unable to, and his mouth slipped away from hers, trailing down her neck and collarbone. Another hiss left her, but he wasn't satisfied with the noise. His lips dipped lower, pressing once against the top of her breast before taking a nipple into his mouth. The moan that left her as his tongue touched it was _much_ more the sound he was desiring. Her hands seized a hold of his sizable arms as he clamped down and sucked, and then immediately dropped to grip his belt.

Sleight of hand with a catcher's precision, she unbuckled the belt and tore it away from his jeans while he continued to administer his attention to her breasts, massaging the one his mouth wasn't seeing to with a hand. It was, admittedly, becoming more difficult to concentrate on doing so as her hands brushed repeatedly against the massive bulge in his pants in their efforts to undo the button of his jeans. It may have been more efficient to reverse their positions, but he was enjoying the sounds escaping her too much to let her have control.

He considered changing his mind when she finally managed to slide his pants past his hips, not hesitating before slipping her hand past his boxers, taking him in her hand with care and possession. The gasp and groan that left his throat at the same time were no softer than hers had been, if maybe a little more guttural. His ministrations stopped on the spot as he threw his head into the air with the sensation. His eyes had drifted closed; when he opened them, he found Arya shooting him a raised eyebrow, barely preparing him for the first stroke her hand gave him. He gritted his teeth to keep from moaning, but couldn't prevent all sounds of his pleasure from reaching her.

She had mercy on him after a few more torturously slow twitches along his length, pulling her hand out of his boxers to push both them and his pants lower. He helped her, leaning back and maneuvering his legs so that all of his clothing could leave his body, joining their discarded shirts and her bra on the floor.

The heat coming off between her legs was noticeable through her clothing. He pulled off her shorts first, tossing them over his shoulder without care, and touched her through her panties, hovering above her completely naked. Her back arched, and a full-throated groan left her. Her hands scrabbled at his arms, grabbing onto his forearm and trying to pull his hand deeper. Choosing to oblige, he slipped a hand past the fabric and snaked a finger over her entrance, feeling carefully across the slick area until he slipped inside of her. She bit down on her lip. Hard. A gasp of pleasure still left her. Her impatience finally gaining the best of her, she slapped his hand away, out of her, and slid off her panties herself. She lied back down, staring up at him, sweat dotting her forehead, both of them as open to each other as they could possibly be.

Praying to fate for the one thing that was missing, he scurried to the nightstand and slid open the drawer. For the first and quite possibly only time in his life, he was absurdly thankful for Theon Greyjoy. Pulling a condom from the half-filled box waiting in the drawer, he tore it open on his way back to Arya, sliding the rubber out and over himself quickly.

The night had been leading to this, he realized, leading to the point where they were here for a reason other than mindlessness, other than sexual need, other than a desire to have themselves ravaged by each other. This was not about desire; it was about _them_.

Still, Gendry hesitated, pulsing at full length in front of her while she waited completely complacent below him, beckoning to him, if not her hands, with her eyes. He swallowed once, tilting his head to the side. "There's no going back from here."

"If I wanted to go back," she said, reaching down and taking him once again in her hand, "then I wouldn't have walked up here tonight."

She guided him to her entrance without a word, leaving him poised on her brink and raising her arms to slink once again around his neck. He placed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes and making their breaths as one before he leaned into it and pushed into her for the first time.

A gasp that was almost a cry left her mouth, and this time it wasn't in pleasure. The grip around her neck tightened, but she didn't stop him and so he didn't. He continued to lower himself until he was completely sheathed in her body, the exclamation of agony dissipating into her heightened breath, her legs wrapped around his waist, holding him inside of her with all of the strength they had.

He waited. Her heavy breathing took several moments to slow, but slow it did. She opened her eyes to look at him, and after a moment turn to accusation, as if to demand why he had frozen so still in her arms. Her legs tightened around him, if that was possible. Still holding himself close to her, so that on the slightest hint of indecision on her part he could stop himself completely, he moved inside of her.

For the briefest of moments, he forgot where he was, forgot everything around him except for the pure pleasure that she was, and then after that there was nothing else except for him and her. The first thrust elicited a primal keel from her, a needy hiss of desire and _need_. She raised her hips to meet the second one, and their groans were simultaneous, long and hard and excellent. He desperately hoped that what he was doing was enough for her, because he was so caught up in what she was giving him that he could spare no thought for what she might have wanted. Her gasps slowly morphed in deep moans and unintelligible words as he continued, his ragged breath sending an undercurrent of noise to surround their lovemaking. She bit her lip more than once, throwing her head back against whatever she was feeling, but was still unable to prevent the groans from leaving her body. Somewhere, far away, Gendry was taking insane pride in what he was doing to her, but that was very far away and what he was feeling was right there and asserted dominance over everything else. Ever.

Her fingers steadily bit into his arms, and then dragged up to his shoulders, fingernails sinking deep, and it _hurt_, and he _liked_ it. Their movements never escalated, never became more frantic or rougher. He set a steady pace and she followed, followed perfectly through the throes of their passion, of their emotion. He felt, heard, watched her cross barriers, felt his own shatter between them, growing closer and closer to the point of no return. Nothing else existed except for him and her.

Quietly, with a gasping whisper of his name he never would have anticipated from Arya Stark, she finished him. One after the other they went toppling over the edge, weak noises mingling between them, neither of them able to tell what came from where and neither of them caring. With the final motions of their driving passion throbbing to a close, he slid to a halt, panting, and opened his eyes to stare into hers.

She was waiting for him, a sheen of sweat covering her face. A drop slipped off of his forehead as he watched, splashing into her hair, but she gave it no notice. A hand pried itself from his shoulder and ran over his cheek, over the fine stubble poking through. Finally, she tilted his chin and raised her head off of the bed to kiss him, slow and deep and complete, everything he had ever wanted and ever would want.

Carefully, he pulled out of her. She shuddered once again as he did so and climbed off, rolling the condom off of himself and disposing of it immediately in the waste basket next to the bedside table. It would do well to dispose of the trash before Robb returned the next evening. Not that he expected his roommate to sort through his trash... but one could never be too safe.

He pulled back the covers on his bed and slipped underneath them as Arya did, as well. Her body was slumped with exertion, mirroring his, but her smile was lit and her eyes were alive. As he settled on his back she crawled to his side, draping herself over him as they had lied on the blanket earlier that night. His arm slipped behind her, and hers over his chest, and they curled up together as if they'd done it a thousand times before.

Her hand was active, tracing his chest, but he was completely beat. Electing to simply remain sprawled across his bed, he let her prop her chin on his chest and giggle at the look on his face. Glancing down at her, he grunted carefully. "Well? How was I?"

"I don't care," she replied, after taking a moment to consider. She lifted herself up to kiss his cheek before planting herself back on his side. "As long as it was you, I don't care. If you really care, though, I don't think anyone else could have made me feel the way you just did."

If the entire night had been leading up to this, and the answer she gave him was, in fact, true, Gendry thought he could live with it. Especially when she settled deeper into his arms and closed her eyes. Especially when her hand slowed and eventually stopped on his chest, her breathing easing into sleep.

Perhaps everything he had ever done with her had been inevitably leading up to this: them, with nothing left to hide, with nothing left to prove.

He watched her for a while longer and then laid back to close his own eyes. On the fringe of sleep, he reasoned that he could easily watch Arya Stark fall asleep at his side for the rest of his life.


	18. Chapter 17

**17**

A siren of blaring and horrifically unwelcome proportion split Arya's dreams in half, jerking her awake against a very warm and very comfortable body. The screeching noise disturbing her did not abate; she buried her face deeper into the warm flesh pressing against her, trying to escape the undesired disruption of her incredibly satisfactory sleep.

Muffled oaths reached her and the body against her shifted, sliding out from underneath her. Her mind still befuddled from sleep, she tried to prevent it from doing so, but her hands scrabbled against empty sheets as he slipped out of the bed. She cracked open her eyes, and in the dim light of the room watched him slam his hand down on the alarm clock reading a ridiculously early time on his bedside table, which mercifully stopped is maniacal noisemaking.

The memories of the previous night came back to her then, fresh and savory. Remembering his power, his gentleness, his passion, she grinned and blushed at the same time, seizing the closest thing, a pillow, and pulling it into her chest in cuddly remembrance. The faint first lights of the sun rising were breaking through the curtains to his room, illuminating him as he stretched his arms above his head languidly before turning to face the bed again. His eyes fell on her and after a moment a smile spread over his features. All six-foot three-inches of him stood without a care in the world, giving her an unprecedented view of every last lean muscle and inch of his skin.

Weakly, she reached an arm out towards him, peeking shyly over the pillow. "Come back to bed..."

Gendry grimaced, although the dawning smirk suggested he was rather pleased with the idea. "I can't. Non-mandatory workout starts at six, for everyone who didn't go to the game."

"Non-mandatory," she repeated, emphasizing the word. "That means you don't have to go to it. That means you have to come back to bed."

"I would love to," he replied between yawns, striding to the room's dresser and pulling open drawers, "but it's one of those show-up-if-you-want-to-play things, and I don't think anyone is going to skip it. Especially when we're all so excited about where we are, as a team."

She grunted resentfully, pushing her face into the pillow and inhaling deeply. It smelled of him, rogue and musky with a hint of sweat and a tinge of earth. It was her favorite pillow ever. Lifting her eyes away from it, she watched reluctantly as he pulled on fresh boxers and a pair of sweatpants. Straightening, he twisted his throwing arm and shook it next to his body strangely.

At the questioning look she shot him, he said, "Elbow hurts. Always does, in the morning."

"You should have Hullen look at that."

"He does," Gendry told her, fishing a shirt out of another drawer. Arya almost groaned mournfully as his beautiful chest disappeared. "Daily. A half hour of ice whenever I throw, but all it does is numb it for awhile. I think something might be screwed up with it, but I'm afraid if I say something, they'll actually find something and I'll be out for a while."

Arya closed her eyes and yawned. "Maybe you should get it checked out, anyway. It might only get worse if you try to keep throwing with it. You don't want to compound an elbow injury when you're a pitcher."

"I know. But it's not much worse now than it was at the beginning of the year, and I've thrown all this time with it. Must be just wear and tear." He stretched it out one more time before shaking it out and shrugging. "I'll live with it. It's nothing I can't handle. I've had worse."

She hummed unhappily, but said nothing else as he pulled a duffel bag and began throwing things inside of it, talking over his shoulder to her as extra clothes went in. "I would stay if I could without it reflecting back on my play. You can stay as long as you want, though, but I think Robb said he'd be flying back in early afternoon." He glanced at her with a sheepish grin. "You should probably be gone by then."

"Agreed," she murmured back.

"Sorry about having to go," he said. Standing up, he rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled dryly. "I didn't really expect you to be staying the night..."

Sitting up, fixing the sheet specifically so that she was covered, she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Is that a complaint I hear?"

"No," Gendry snapped quickly, shaking his head and hands. "Absolutely not. I had nothing wrong with last night." He paused. A cute, miniature version of his thinking face crept onto his face. "It _was _rather sooner than I had expected our relationship to advance to... _that_... but I'm not complaining at all. I wouldn't trade last night for the world."

"Damn well better not," she grumbled teasingly, letting the sheet fall as she eased back into the pillows, careless in her nakedness around him.

He grinned as he watched her, not quite gawking but not far from it, and she thought she might have convinced him to be a few minutes late to the workout. One more glance at the time, however, and he grimaced, reaching for the duffel bag. "If you want, I'll call you tonight. Probably. Depends if Robb's around or not. I don't know when we'll get another chance to do something like last night." When she winced, he gave her a sympathetic grimace. "But I definitely look forward to spending time with you like that again."

"Me, too," Arya replied, returning his happy expression. It was only partially marred by a yawn. "Have fun at your workout."

"Get some more sleep," he told her, hoisting the bag and turning to go.

"Gendry."

"Hmm?"

She held out her arms as she glanced back at her. "Come here."

His face morphed into a mosaic of incredulity and delight. The duffel bag thumped to the floor as he floated back over to her, looking in all his hard masculinity like a hero striding to give her a magical kiss. Planting one knee next to her body on the bed, he leaned across her so that he was leaning on a hand on either side of her shoulders as she twined her arms around his neck. He bent to kiss her, but before he could she lowered her forehead to butt into his, halting his approach.

A look of confusion crossed his features, eyes less than an inch from hers, but before he could say anything she kissed his nose and maneuvered so that she was looking straight into his stormy oceanic eyes. "You're mine. No one else can have you. Okay? You're mine, all mine, and only mine. You're untouchable. Except by me. Got it?"

A wry, prideful smile broke across his rugged features. "I'm yours."

Arya nodded enthusiastically, their hairs tickling the faces of one another. "And I'm yours. Know that, too."

"Understood," he murmured, and she finally tilted her face to allow him to kiss her. It was as sweet and tender as it had been the night before, every one of her cares melting beneath the subtle, undeniable pressure of his lips.

Despite her attempts to unbreakably lock her hold on his neck, he managed to escape without them having a repeat of their previous late night activities, albeit with a rueful face that mirrored her own as he walked out the door. She pulled his pillow back to her, a poor replacement for the comfort of his body, listening to his steps in the hallway, the opening to the apartment door, it closing. She wished the alarm had never gone off. She wished that it didn't matter whether or not the alarm had gone off, wished it didn't matter because she could know he would be right back in her bed the next night, and the next...

With a lacking effort, Arya tried to return to sleep, but found it surprisingly difficult to do so with the knowledge that the factor that had contributed to her incredible slumber only a few hours before was no longer present. Rolling onto Gendry's side of the bed let her soak in the remnants of the warmth he'd left, but it soon drained away as though sucked up by a vacuum. She wondered how anyone could be as warm as him, as warm as he always seemed to be. Even her brothers, who had grown up resilient to the harsh northern winters, couldn't compare.

Finally, lying alone in the wide bed she was reluctant to leave despite the growing chill in her limbs, Arya threw aside the covers and sat up, rubbing her eyes. When she slid her thin legs over the side of the bed and stood up, she reveled in the audacity of her nudity and basked for a moment in the memory of what she and Gendry had shared. A few thin trickles of blood ran along her inner thighs, reminders of the virginity she no longer possessed. She smiled anew with the thought, the sound of Gendry's groans of need and murmurs of satisfaction ringing her ears. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet, but she barely felt it. Instead, a strange, giddy warmth bloomed and spread in her stomach, causing her to clap both hands across her middle as though she might explode with happiness. She couldn't help it; for perhaps the first time in her life, she felt like a woman, in the best possible way. Gendry was the reason.

Once she'd cleaned off her legs through his connecting door to the bathroom, she returned to the bedroom and began to gather her worn clothes, piling them on the corner of the bed. Her stomach rumbled noisily as she folded everything unnaturally neatly, demanding replenishment after the exertions she'd put her body through. She wrinkled her nose as she raised her soiled panties, detesting to wear what was already dirty. A moment later, with a smile, she strode to Gendry's dresser and pulled open his top drawers until she found a pair of briefs that must have been very tight on him. On her, they were far too large, but the elastic waistband held them to her hips acceptably. The red t-shirt she fished out of a lower drawer fell nearly to her knees and sleeved her a half inch past her elbows; for some reason, that struck her as incredibly desirable.

Wearing nothing but a shirt and underwear that belonged to the man she had spent the night with, she strode out from his bedroom with the intent to gorge herself on whatever Gendry and her brother bothered to keep in their refrigerator.

Jon Snow looked up from the kitchen counter as she emerged.

They both stopped dead, staring at each other as though they had never seen grievous concoctions of nature so gregarious as each other before. Jon's eyebrows crossed in total confusion as his mouth dropped open, surprise engulfing his features from his flushing face to the slackening of his hands, letting the DVD case he was holding topple to the countertop. On her part, Arya's fingers seized the hem of the shirt and tried to pull it lower even though it brushed her kneecaps already, unable to prevent the rapid blood rush that erupted in her face. She could feel her ears reddening, her nose reddening, her _eyes _darkening in utter shock at the sight of her half brother.

_Oh gods oh gods oh gods. Oh, _shit.

"Arya," Jon said, as if he couldn't believe what he was saying. His eyebrows creased even further, as though he was trying very hard to fit puzzle pieces together, his eyes flickering around her, behind her, in the effort.

"Hi... Jon..." _Shit, shit shit. Oh, seven motherfucking hells. _Offense. Offense was a good defense. "What are you doing here?"

Very slowly, his face darkened. Stark blood shone in his eyes. He looked perfectly like their father as he dragged the DVD case back off of the counter and carefully held it up. The knuckles she could see that gripped the case were white as snow. "Robb borrowed a movie from me. I have a three hour layover between Riverrun and Castle Black. I came to pick it back up." He opened his hand; the movie clattered back to the tabletop. As it did so, Jon cocked his head to the side dangerously. His eyes were flatly accusing. "What were _you_ doing here?"

She elected for distraction. It was a weak effort, at best. "I didn't even hear you come in. You must have been scary quiet. I didn't even know you were in town." She planted her fists on her hips. "Why didn't I know you were in town?"

"Because I barely have time to zip over here to grab this before I have to get back to the airport, I had no time to stop by for hello," Jon retorted, clapping an open palm down next to the movie. Hard. He raised his other hand and brandished a finger towards her. His fingers flickered behind her, towards Gendry's door. She bit her lip to keep from swearing. "Tell me what you were doing here. Tell me now."

"I, uh..." She did swear, but it was only in her mind. Frantically, she cast about, begging herself to come up with an excuse. "I spent the night here... Me and Mom had a fight! And I didn't want to go home—"

"You just fucking walked out of that bedroom." His voice turned from furious to wrenchingly cold in an instant, his arm dropping with exaggerated calm to his side.

"Yeah, well," she fished, praying, "I didn't want to sleep on the couch, so I just took Robb's bed..."

"That. Is not. Robb's fucking room. That is not Robb's shirt you're wearing right now." Moving out from behind the counter, he took three steps towards her, appearing all the while intent to kill. Not her. His eyes lifted off of her, swiveled towards the bedroom door. His fists curled, and Arya heard every knuckle cracked. "Is he in there?"

She breathed a short sigh of relief in the fact that Gendry was not there to die, but it was short-lived; she had still been caught so red-handed that it bordered on a blackish crimson, and her situation was dire, if not deadly. After a quick, courageously unhelpful shake of her head, she mumbled, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jon shook his head. She was almost afraid of him with the hostility in his stance, but she knew he would never hurt her. Just like Gendry never would, but in a different way. "I'm gonna kill him. Tell me where he is. I'm going to go kill him."

"Jon, I have no clue what—"

"Don't feed this bull shit, Arya," Jon growled. "You just spent the night in Robb's apartment, with Robb's roommate, that _son of a bitch_ closer... you fucking _slept _with him! Arya, what is _wrong _with you?"

"What is wrong with me?!" she repeated. Anger rose in her like a fastball, and before she realized it her body had adopted a completely defiant stance, rising up on the balls of her bare, cold feet to oppose her brother. "I am a grown woman! Don't you dare get in my face like this! I can sleep with who I like, asshole!"

"You have no idea what you're saying," Jon seethed, appearing only slightly taken aback by her reaction. "You're my sister. He's... he's got to be five years older than you! Arya, what are you thinking? You're too young for this sort of thing!"

With just that sentence, Arya felt herself inflate with fury. Her toes raised her up, up, until she was as close to looking Jon in the eye as she could possibly be. "I am nineteen, Jon. I am a woman grown. I am free and I am certainly capable of deciding who I want to fuck!" Jon winced; it almost gave her satisfaction. "And it is _none _of your _fucking _business who that is! _None whatsoever_! You have _no _right to say what I do with my life! I can sleep with who I bloody well like, whoever they are!"

Jon made no move to interrupt her, but he looked no less angry or murderous when she finished. His chest rose and fell heavily as he took a humongous breath, his eyes narrowing. "What did he do to you? What did he say to you to get... that?"

It took a moment for what he was suggesting to set in. It was like throwing a nuclear warhead into a bonfire. "You think he _coerced _me into bed?! Jon, you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. No clue. You freaking think I'm so _weak _that I could get charmed into bed by some fool man who thinks I'm an easy lay?"

"No," Jon grumbled, shifting from foot to foot once before crossing his arms across his chest. "But every girl has a weakness. He must have hit yours, or you would never have done this."

"Done fucking what?! All I did was choose to go to bed with a man and do it! Everyone does that! Everyone! And you know what? I freaking _enjoyed _it. I enjoyed being with him. I _enjoy _being with him! I _like _him, Jon, I like him a lot! What is your freaking problem?"

The screaming match ground to a halt instantly. His eyes widened, narrowed, and his eyebrows warped to give him a shocked look. "Has this been going on? For a while?"

_Shit_. She wasn't sure whether it compounded the problem or simplified it. "That's not the point. I will not be treated like I'm thirteen years old—"

"You've been seeing someone," he muttered, his mouth contorting in derision and hurt. "And you didn't tell me. You didn't tell me! When were you going to tell me, Arya?"

Frustrated nearly to the point of tears, Arya threw her arms up, hissing her anger and terror away on the air. "Does it matter? Does it really fucking matter?"

"Of course it does! I want to know how long you've been keeping it a secret from me!"

"Maybe there's a reason I kept it a secret from you!" she cried. _A secret from everyone_. But that was beside the point. Probably. "I knew you would overreact—_exactly _like you're doing—and I wanted to avoid that because I do not want to deal with that! In King's Landing, you asked me if there was someone in secret, like you didn't even care! Why can't you be okay with this, Jon?"

Jon glared at her for several long moments and finally turned away, pacing several feet from her. He closed his eyes and shook his head, almost forlornly. "I can't believe this. My baby sister, the one who always insisted she was never particularly interested in any guy... And I walk in on you strutting out like you're a freaking queen..."

"I did not _strut _out."

"You're right," he spat, shaking his head bitterly. "It was more of a majestic float." He shuddered as he sighed. "Gods, Arya... do you even have any idea what you're doing? You're never had a relationship before—don't look at me like that, I'm not saying that as an insult." She lowered her glaring stare grudgingly, but crossed her arms to continue displaying her discontent while Jon ran a hand through his curly hair and watched her fearfully. "Arya, this is serious, though. You just hopped into bed with a guy you barely know."

"I don't barely know him," she snapped.

He stared at her sharply, exhaling broodingly. "Then exactly how long has this been going on? How long have you been seeing each other? Without my bloody knowledge," he added only to annoy her.

It worked. Before she could stop herself, she gave him a correct answer. "A few weeks, okay? Maybe a month." Not even close to a month.

She bit her lip again as he swore, fury racing back into his eyes. "A few weeks?! Arya, you barely know him! What were you thinking?"

"I've known him for almost four months now!" she blurted, trying to tread water in an ocean twenty miles deep. When Jon opened his mouth to say something about that, too, she continued quickly, "We talk a lot. We tell each other everything. We did even before we were together! He trusts me, I trust him. I've never felt like this with anyone else before, Jon. When I'm around him, I'm completely happy. And he's sweet and kind and caring and he doesn't push me for anything _at all_!"

"So far as you see," Jon replied. "Maybe you trust him." His brow clouded over again, his eyes growing distant. "But he could break that, easily. You have no idea what he thinks. I liked him well enough when I met him, but I... damn it, I _knew _there was something about him! And I've seen better people than I judged him to be stoop and grovel and scheme to trick a woman."

"He's not doing that!" Arya insisted. He wasn't. He would never. He was Gendry, her Gendry, and he just would never do that. "He's real, Jon! He tells me secrets he's told no one else and I've told him mine!"

"Men lie, Arya! Secrets as far as _you_ know. Maybe he's just making them up on the spot. Men do crazy shit to get a girl in bed." He flinched, his eyes crinkling in irritation. "Trust me on it."

She grunted, but did not back down a step. "Not Gendry. He would never do that. I don't think he's ever been close to anyone, Jon, ever, not until me. You read about him in that article, you know what his life was like before. I think I'm the first person he's ever opened up to. He's the first person _I've _ever opened up to."

"What am I, dog crap?"

"You're completely different, and no, I _haven't _completely opened up to you."

Jon shook his head, grumbling under his breath, and stalked back towards the kitchen counter with his hands rubbing his sides impulsively. Turning back to her, he repeated, "Why didn't you tell be about him? Like, four weeks ago, why not?"

_Because it's a secret. Because no one knows._ Jon didn't know that. But he now knew about her and Gendry; perhaps he didn't know just how precarious and potentially dangerous of a secret he had unearthed. Choosing what she told him carefully before she said it, mind open to any possible implications he could draw and exploit from her words. "It was a need-to-know thing. You obviously didn't need to know. I didn't want you to overreact. Exactly like you're doing."

He scoffed, but didn't press the matter again. "When were you _going _to tell me?"

She tried to give what she hoped was an unconcerned shrug. "Whenever it seemed appropriate. It wasn't a big item on my to-do list."

Jon released his breath in a hiss through his teeth and paced away from her, shaking his head. Her heart had calmed down, but adrenaline's aftershock was still ravaging her body with nervous energy as she watched her brother grumble and seethe, actually halting in the doorway to Gendry's room and glaring in as if he expected her lover to be crouching under the bed.

"I just can't believe this," Jon repeated, adding a choice swear word under his breath.

"What exactly can't you believe?" Arya demanded, her anger rising anew. "That I actually interest somebody?"

"You're nineteen!" Jon cried, waving his arms in the air. "I think! You're not supposed to be running around with some rookie hotshot! This isn't who you are!"

"He's not a hotshot," she growled, "and you have no say in what I am or do." She groaned and seized a hold of her own hair, considering whether or not to pull it from her head in frustration. "Jon, look, okay, whatever you think this is, it's not. He didn't trick me, he didn't scam me, I didn't wake up in the morning and he wasn't there—"

"Of course not, this is _his _fucking apartment," Jon growled, visibly raking his skin with fingernails. "He had to play nice until he could get you out, and _then _he can start being the asshole..."

"I'm serious!" Arya exclaimed, and growled again in frustration. "Jon, he's real. And he is the best man I've ever met! Including Dad!" Jon stopped moving, his eyes actually widening. She smiled inwardly, glad the impact had not been lost on him, but did not stop her explanation. "He is as stubborn as I am and twice as infuriating, and if he was anyone else I would boss him around and I would _hate _it but I don't get anything out of him without a fight and it's incredibly refreshing to have someone who can stay in the same room with me for more than a minute. I really care about him, Jon."

Jon raised an eyebrow. "Isn't he something two hundred pounds heavier than you? How can you boss _that _around?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Only a little over a hundred, and I find ways. With him, though... he makes me scratch and claw for every inch, and I give him even less."

Darkness returned to her brother's expression. "We better be talking metaphorically, here..."

"Seven hells, Jon!" She sighed, halfway in the vicinity of a scream, and rolled her eyes. "Listen to me. It's none of your business, and it never will be. And I will take exception to you if you do anything about this." She bristled, flinching as she realized the gravity of what she'd been caught in. "I will take exception if you speak to _anybody_ about _any _of this. Stay out of it. This is not about you."

"If you think I'll stay out of this..."

"He's bigger than you," she pointed out. "And he's not afraid to protect what's his."

Jon's brow furrowed once again. "I don't like the sound of that, either—"

"Just stop," Arya said, and she meant it. It was enough. She could not deal with this. Placing both hands on her temples and rubbing her palms deep into them, she shook her head and walked to her brother. Seizing him with both arms, she tried with a mixture of success to force him towards the door. "Enough. I've had enough. Get out of here. You have no right to treat me this way. I don't have to stand here and have to explain everything about my love life to you."

His resistance was only half-hearted, but he was still doing a fair job of impeding her attempts to herd him towards the door. As he tried to mumble out a response, she punched him in the gut, and succeeded in pressing him halfway across the room in his pained condition before he recovered and set his feet in the floor. "All right, all right. Fine. I'm sorry. Maybe you're right—"

"_Maybe _I'm right? Who in the fuck do you think—"

"Okay," he placated, clearly exerting himself considerably to ink smoothness and clarity into his voice. "I'm sorry. I'm overreacting, you're right. I'm just... in shock. Of all the things I've imagined doing that I really never wanted to do, having you walk out of a stranger's room wearing only a stranger's clothes is... _not _what I ever wanted to experience, Arya." He shivered, but his clenched fists suggested it was in anger. "I'm trying very hard not to walk out the door, find him, and kill him. Kill the man who touched my little sister..."

Arya stopped forcing him to the door, but only to seize him half-heartedly by the jacket with a fist. "If you did that, I would kill _you_."

She released him and turned away, mumbling angrily to herself as she strode to the couch and fell onto it, pulling the shirt over her legs. She felt like going back to bed, preferably with Gendry, acceptably without, but her sleep was over for the day, and also all other activities a bed was designated for. Unfortunately.

Jon remained where she had left him, rubbing the spot on his chest where she'd grabbed him absent-mindedly while glaring at her strangely. Several moments passed, during which nothing was said in the room, until he finally lowered his hand and shook his head. "I don't know what's going on between you two, but it's making me very worried. I've never seen you like this before."

"Like what?" Arya demanded, resting her head against the back of the couch. "You know, that's almost exactly what Robb said, too, a long while back. Like what?"

"Like..." He waved a hand over her, scrunching his face up in displeasure. "Like you want someone. Ugh. This is a moment no big brother should ever have to go through. I can't even begin to imagine what it is you see in that man."

"You just said you liked him!"

"That was before," Jon replied, with a straight face. "This is after. And I can't believe it. He's a huge hulking brute! He didn't look like he was intelligent enough for you. Freaking huge... I don't like to think about you being you. If you pissed him off, he could hurt you, Arya. I'd kill him, but the damage would be done."

"I can't believe you keep saying that! He would never hurt me. Just trust me, okay? If he raised one finger against me, he would punish himself more than you could ever punish him. And he never would. He's a good person, Jon, and smarter than anyone gives him credit for. Everyone has underestimated him for his entire life. Don't do this to him anymore. Don't do this to me. This is me!" She threw her hands up in the air. A tear slipped out of her right eye; she snapped it away with a finger, but Jon flinched as though he'd seen. "Look, Jon. I'm happy, okay? I haven't been happy before, not like this. I want this. Can't you see that?"

For another cruelly long moment, Jon stood, looking for all his mind like he wanted to deny everything he was saying, tell her she was out of her mind and was only asking to get hurt. Then his eyes shifted, and it was almost like she was ten again, and he was looking at her as the sister he preferred to play catch with rather than let her go off to play with dolls. The sister he trusted and put faith in, not a pampered girl who needed protecting.

Jon sighed and made the short trek to the couch. Easing himself down beside her, he shrugged. "I'm just... I'm sorry, Arya. That was..." He shook his head, eyes widening and returning to normal size incredulously as he looked towards the counter again. "I did not expect you to come walking out of someone else's room. But I shouldn't have overreacted that way and you're right, I don't have the right to stick my nose in your business. I'm just..." Another sigh inserted itself in his exclamation. "You're my little sister, and I'll always feel like I need to protect you. When I realized that..." He gulped and nodded back towards the bedroom, his mouth screwed up in wordless disgust. "I just lost it, I'm sorry. I want you to be happy, I do, I just... never thought of you being happy with someone like Gendry Waters..."

Arya scoffed. "And just why in the hell not?"

"Well," Jon said defensively, inching away from her accusatory stare, slightly, "you're just completely different people. He lived in the slums, you grew up in a beautiful city with a privileged childhood. Oh, you know it's true. And you were never wanting for money, and he never had it. He's huge; you're little. The instances go on and on."

"That's shallow of you," she retorted, "to think of him that way. And me. It's not about what he was and I was, Jon. It's about what we have. We share things. Baseball. Secrets. Trust. It's about that. And, just so you know, it was _me _who pulled _him _into the bedroom."

Jon grimaced. "Yet another detail I could do without." He held up a hand before she could blurt something else angrily. "All right, all right. If you're happy with... what it is you and him have, I won't do anything to disrupt it. Or mess with it in any way," he added, at her warning glare. "I swear, though, Arya, if he hurts you in any way, I'll—"

"He won't," Arya said quietly, but even she heard the raw conviction in her voice. She believed it, she _knew _it. She knew in her heart that Gendry was characteristically incapable of causing her harm.

After a long moment of holding critical eye contact with her, he tilted his head to the side and shook his head. "It's really hard to keep an open mind right now, after all of the anger I just ran through in five minutes. Even after hearing you out. Especially when you kept it from me." He watched with a slightly implicating stare. "I'm still kind of upset you did that. I'm your brother... you know you can tell me anything..."

"Well, you're—" She caught herself only a breath short of telling him the truth, that he was the only one who knew about her and Gendry. Except Sansa, but that didn't count. Sansa had secrets of her own... which Gendry now knew, as well. Arya placed a hand to her head as a headache that perfectly reflected her morning attacked her brain from many angles at once. "You're a long way away from Winterfell," she saved, relieved when Jon's expression didn't change. "And it hasn't really been that long. I would have told you when I was ready, when I felt like it was important enough for me to tell you."

"You're happy," Jon pointed out. "That seems like an important enough reason for you to tell me. Other girls, girls like Sansa, would be screaming from the rooftops about their joy, gushing about whoever made them that way." He shook his head in distaste, and raised an eyebrow at an apparent thought. "Man, if I reacted this way, I can only imagine what Dad said. What did he say?"

Arya flinched, and cursed herself under her breath. Jon noticed, his eyebrows arcing together, and another curse slipped between her lips as she fumbled for a response, any response. A response that he couldn't rightly call a lie. "He didn't say anything, really."

"He doesn't know," Jon said. His face slowly turned away from hers, his eyes devoid of ice, of fire, of all feeling whatsoever. She could only watch in horror as his head began to shake from side to side in resignation. "You didn't tell Dad. I assume you didn't tell Catelyn, then. Hell, Arya, does _Robb _know?"

She forced herself and her voice to maintain dignity and steadiness. "No."

"Bloody hell," Jon swore. "You're not telling me that I'm the only one who knows that you are seeing someone."

"You're not," Arya replied weakly. "Sansa knows."

His jaw dropped, and a grunt of disbelief shot from the opening it made. "You told _Sansa _before you told me? Before you told _anyone_? Okay, am I just completely missing something here? This isn't like you at all, Arya."

It was said without mirth or accusation, but she took offense, anyway. "The universe doesn't revolve around you, Jon! I chose not to shout my relationship out to the heavens. That's my right, isn't it?"

"Forgive me for saying so," Jon said carefully, watching her darkly, "because I'm not trying to make you angry or say anything I'd regret, but if you're hiding this from your _family_—especially family who's closer to you, geographically speaking, than I am—doesn't that suggest you're hiding something?"

She sat bolt upright, caught somewhere between the ugly truth and a brutal rendition of what she and Gendry were. "It's complicated."

"Oh, great. That's what everyone says in every relationship they ever have. You know what, Arya? It's usually not as complicated as you think it is."

"Well, this time it is," she snapped. She stared at her brother for a long moment, her teeth chewing into her lip as she considered just how much she wanted to reveal. With a groan of frustration, she continued, "Gendry plays for Dad's team, Robb is his captain and his freaking roommate. If the circumstances were different, I'm sure they would love him, but they're not different. I don't know how Mom would react—poorly, I'm sure—but I'm not willing to risk it. Not yet. I _really _like Gendry, Jon, and I don't know what Dad would do."

"What's he going to do, throw him off the team?" Jon shook his head and chuckled annoyingly to himself as though that were the silliest thought in the world. As Arya tried to formulate a method of conveying her fears, though, his laughs cut off abruptly, the amusement vanishing as he stared far off into space, an unwelcome thought clearly dawning in his mind. After a pause, he glanced at her and looked away quickly when he saw that she was watching him. He cleared his throat before continuing, "I don't agree with keeping it a secret like you're doing. In my experience, hiding things only leads to hurt feelings and unintended consequences, in the end."

The advice bounced off of Arya's head, not even considered. She had stressed over Gendry and her enough over the short time of their relationship to know that she was convinced they didn't want to tell anybody yet. Besides, having Jon discover what they had showed her that a rather significant part of herself enjoyed having Gendry to herself, without other people gawking over their shoulders the entire time.

"You can't tell anybody, Jon," she insisted, reaching out and grabbing his arm. "Please. If and when we let people know, _I _have to be the one to do it. Okay? Promise me you won't tell anyone."

Jon's expression didn't change from its thoughtful, disturbed set as he watched her piercingly, considering. With a sigh, his head shifted left and right. "I can't make promises like that anymore, Arya. If something happens, and I really think that someone needs to know and I'm worried about you, I won't be able to stop myself from sharing it." She opened her mouth to protest, but he quickly cut her off with a jerk of his hand. "However..." He grimaced. "Much as it pains me to say it, it's your secret and I'll respect that, as long as you're coming to no harm by it. At least, under the condition that if he _ever _does _anything_ to cause you any pain, you tell me right away, so I can fly down and beat the shit out of him."

Arya grinned weakly. "Well, you'd have to get in line behind me to do that, if that ever happened. But it won't."

"I wish I was as convinced of that as you are," Jon sighed, leaning his head back against the sofa and closing his eyes. He cracked one open to glance at a wall clock, and cursed quietly. "Now I'm going to miss my flight. Thank you very much."

"Don't blame me," Arya retorted. "You could've said, 'Oh, I'm very happy for you, Arya,' and walked out there, but you had to piss and moan for however long. It's not my fault you missed your damn flight. Catch another one tonight, it won't be that difficult to switch."

"I'll hate to, now," he replied, with another grimace. "Mormont expected me back by the afternoon, though. He'll be angry that I won't show up until night." He twisted his mouth and eyed her through a slit bordered by eyelashes. "See what you put me through?"

"Oh, grow up."

Muttering irritably to himself, Jon stood from the sofa and glared back towards the bedroom before moving back towards the kitchen counter. "Go get dressed. In your _own _clothes. I'm going to taxi you home."

"My car is parked outside," Arya replied. She realized that she was tugging Gendry's shirt tighter around herself, and that she was also loathe to part from it. "I'll just drive home myself."

"Fine, but you'll drive me downtown, first." He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at her sharp scowl. "I may tolerate it, but I don't have to like it. No way I'm leaving you here alone, now that I know what I know. Call me protective and overbearing, I don't care, just go put your clothes on." He punctuated his words by enthusiastically swiping the movie case back off the counter.

Arya spent another moment glaring at him, but it didn't take much deliberation for her to decide it wasn't worth fighting over. She and Gendry would get no more alone time that day whether or not Jon was there, and she had other things she could accomplish. The cat was out of the bag and there was nothing she could do about it that she hadn't already done. She might as well surrender for his minor victory rather than suffer a massive defeat.

Listening to him grumble to himself, she rose from the couch and made her way back to the bedroom, grinning in spite of the situation as she remembered a similar situation the previous night, minus the man she'd drawn into the room by the hand. It took a moment of gathering before she could find and toss all of her clothes onto the bed. She reluctantly removed his shirt in favor of her own, but resolved to sneak it out somehow, to wear at her heart's leisure later, when circumstances allowed it. She kept his briefs on, beneath her pants.

Just as she finished dressing, her phone rang. A moment of searching found it laying half under the bed and end table, and she fished it up to see, in surprise, that her sister's name was flashing across the screen. "Hello?"

"Arya." Her sister's voice filtered through the phone. Something was off about it; Arya couldn't quite place what. "I need you to pick me up at the airport tonight. About seven. I'm flying back to Winterfell."

Suspicion flared in Arya's mind, shooting aside any pleasant or amiable greeting Sansa may have otherwise received. "What happened?"

For once in her life, Sansa obliged her with an unshielded answer. "Joffrey found out."

Arya launched off the bed, standing rigid as a board on her feet. "Gods, what did he do?"

"He threw me out," Sansa said, oddly calm. "I woke up this morning and... Sandor was in the living room, and Joffrey was yelling at him, I don't know where Sandor came from... they were saying things, they were getting angry, and then Joffrey rounded on me and started throwing my stuff out of the door... I need to get out of King's Landing, Arya. I need to be home."

"Of course," Arya replied frantically. "Sansa, did he hurt you? Did he touch you? Are you in danger?"

"No. He didn't. And I'm not. I'm just..." Sansa's voice half-cracked and then stopped. After a moment, a muffled sound came through the line. It took Arya a moment to recognize weeping. "Sandor just left. He didn't... I thought... I don't know why he was there, he _knew _Joffrey would be there... He just walked away from me, Arya, I don't know what to think..."

Arya blinked. This was out of her league. "Are you hurt? Where are your things?"

"I have everything I... I have everything," Sansa whispered between sobs. With an effort, her voice solidified. Arya was impressed at her sister's sudden ability to control her emotion. "I'm going to the airport right now. I only have a few suitcases. Can you pick me up?"

"Of course! Of course. I..." She froze. Was there anything that she could say to help? She wasn't even entirely sure what Sansa was going through, what all of the emotions the elder Stark sister was experiencing were. "Sansa, what can I do? What can I do to help?"

There was a long pause, many breaths passing through the line, before Sansa's voice returned. The tears and sobs were gone, but it still shook horribly. "He just... left me there. On my knees outside Joffrey's apartment, Joffrey yelling at him the entire way to the elevator. I didn't say anything, I couldn't. The look on his face was... so helpless... But he just left me there to be screamed at. He said he would never do that. Why would he do this? What did I do wrong?"

_Son of a bitch._ Empathizing madly, Arya searched and searched for the right thing to say, anything to say, that would take Sansa's mind away from the dark place where she was. She wanted to do nothing more than streak down to King's Landing and obliterate Joffrey Baratheon, then find Sandor Clegane and do the same. She didn't know nearly enough about Clegane to understand what had happened, in the short and broken description Sansa gave, but what she knew about her sister's feelings was enough to let her know how serious and painful it was. Only a few months before, she wouldn't have cared less about Sansa's mood, or her feelings, or what she wanted. Only a few months, and Gendry, and Clegane, and a lot of baseball, and everything had changed between the two sisters. Now, the hurt her sister was feeling almost seemed to hurt Arya, too. If Gendry had ever done that to her... but he wouldn't. He was Gendry; he couldn't.

"Just get on the plane, Sansa," Arya murmured. "Everything will be all right. Get on the plane, I'll meet you at the airport, and we'll go home. It will be okay."

Stark steel seemed to reassert itself. The voice only possessed the slightest wobble after a few more seconds of silence answered Arya's pledge. "All right. Okay. I'll land... the plane will land at seven. I only have a few things, a few suitcases, so I'll be good. If you could just meet me with the car, I'll be good. Thank you so much. I'll land about seven."

"I know, Sansa," Arya whispered, gently. "I'll see you, then. It'll be good when you get home."

"Okay. Yes. I'll let you go, then. Thank you, Arya."

"Let me know when you land," she murmured, but Sansa had already hung up, and she was left talking to an empty line that was someone less desolate than the call that had just ended.

She dropped her phone from her ear, still reeling from what she'd just heard. A glance at the door made her think of Jon waiting for her in the kitchen, which led to thoughts of the family, and how they would react to this startling turn of events. A moment was spent wondering why Sansa had called Arya instead of Catelyn or Ned, before it struck her that both of their parents had no idea about Clegane, and would therefore require an explanation of events before they accepted why she was coming home. Arya was Sansa's confidante, the keeper of her secret. Arya was the one who would require the least speaking to about the problem in order to understand the situation, and it was not difficult to figure out how much Sansa wouldn't want to talk about it. How she herself would describe to her parents... that was for later to figure out.

She was so worried about her sister that she didn't even feel irritation about the responsibility that had been thrust upon her. Half of her concern surrounded the turmoil that Sansa was experiencing—considering the things she'd gone through with Joffrey and the blind, apparently false faith she'd put in Clegane—but the other half was centered around fear about the backlash from Sansa's secrets. Arya didn't actually think the Lannisters would intentionally _endanger_ her, but there were many ways to harm someone without actually hurting them. The Lannisters were a powerful family, especially in King's Landing, easily capable of making Sansa's life hell no matter which nook or cranny she tried to hide herself in. Learning that Sansa had been having an affair behind the back of Joffrey would only stoke fires that had been growing underneath a spit of Stark for months. If not years.

With a groan, she let her head fall into her hands, and found her forehead brushing Gendry's shirt, which had somehow become clenched in her hands. It brought a slight smile to her face, smelling his scent like she was burying her face in his chest instead, but it didn't quite fight away the trepidation that had managed to catch a hold of her despite the perfection she had thought her life had just become. Until Gendry was back, Jon was still waiting for her and Sansa was still flying in with a broken heart.

She didn't even try to hide the shirt as she carried it out with her.

* * *

It had been a long time since Jon had been to a bar in Winterfell. In truth, the one he trudged to was only the second one he had been inside. When he had left the city for what he thought was a permanent exile, he had been below the drinking age, and had only been back once since he could consume alcohol, with Robb, an excursion into a pub that both brothers had come to regret.

_Brothers_, Jon remarked to himself, spending a moment over the word before he lifted his glass to his lips and sipped at the fiery liquid it held. It tasted hard, like all northern liquor did, but it didn't quite wash away the bitterness he sensed on his tongue that had nothing to do with the beer. It had to do with Winterfell itself, with the horrible guilt that seized him whenever he returned, with the indescribable love he felt for his "family" that always seemed so distant. Winterfell wasn't the place of his birth, but it had been his home for almost all of his life up to the point he was drafted, and time and again he found himself yearning for it to be again.

But those days were gone. He lived on the Wall now. He played for the Watch. There was no going back from that, not for anyone or anybody.

He settled back into staring into his glass, sitting alone at the bar and enjoying the quiet while craving company. After Arya had dropped him off downtown, badgering him the entire time about holding his tongue, he had wandered for a while between the shorter municipal buildings, banks, and government establishments. Castle Black was an industrial town, supporting just enough of a male population to hold onto a professional baseball team, but it held nothing of the mystical, mildly chilly elegance of Winterfell. He had missed it, dreaded returning to it, been caught endlessly in a love-hate relationship with it. But he still couldn't resist watching it when he could, spending a free hour to catch a drink and ponder it while he waited to catch a later plane.

His mind wasn't quiet, of course. Baseball was a passion, but it was still work. The Watch was home for a series against the Dreadfort, and they were close enough in the standings where both could make it run for a wild card. The old bear wouldn't like it much that Jon had missed his first flight when they had to focus back in after their break. He hadn't seen Ygritte in weeks, which was weighing far heavier than it should. She was from north of the border and hellbent on making it over the Wall into Westeros, two things he never thought he would ever be able to tolerate; nevertheless, every moment he spent away from her that wasn't dealing with baseball revolved around thoughts of hair kissed by fire and crooked teeth that were oddly, startlingly alluring.

And then there was freaking Arya. Jon lifted his glass for a shot-sized mouthful and relished the sear roaring down his throat. Freaking Arya, and freaking Gendry Waters. Jon hated striking out. The only thing he hated more than striking out was striking out to someone he knew personally. The only thing he hated more than striking out to someone he knew personally was striking out to someone sleeping with Arya. He set down the glass in order to prevent himself from smashing it completely in his hands and folded them on the counter instead, glaring hard into the cabinet behind the bar. Gendry _did _seem decent enough, for the one time they'd met and spoken. Then again, he hadn't been lying when he told Arya that men did stupid things in order to trick women into bed. He seriously doubted Gendry was everything Arya had made him out to be; even if he was nice and smarter than he looked, he still wasn't half as good as Arya deserved, as far as Jon concerned.

He sighed. Difficulty didn't begin to describe whether he was angrier that she was with Gendry or that she had kept it a secret from _everybody_. No matter how she had tried to explain her decision in the car, he couldn't see the logic behind it. Things kept secret only came back to haunt you. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain, his conscience gave him a good kick in the ass, courtesy of his hypocritical relationshipish thing with Ygritte. Double pangs of guilt hit him as he thought of how he had berated Arya for doing exactly what he was doing, and how he hated himself for thinking her wrong and choosing to overlook his own blame.

It bothered him, however—a lot—that she was hiding a relationship that had advanced into the sexual stage from Ned Stark. The man who had raised six children was the most righteous, most honorable, most reasonable man Jon had ever known, and he couldn't believe that any of the things Arya feared could actually happen. From a business standpoint, Ned Stark couldn't really afford to cut Gendry; not in a playoff run, when he was the hottest ticket in the game, albeit caught on a snag. From a familial standpoint, Ned Stark would never turn Gendry away just because they had kept secret the fact that they had feelings for each other and acted on them. As long as Arya was happy, Jon couldn't believe the Direwolves' owner would be opposed to a relationship, at all, except for the fact that it was being kept a secret. Starks were cold to suspicious strangers, but they unconditionally loyal to family. Unless your name was Catelyn, and the family was Jon. In reference to Arya and Gendry Waters, however, Jon felt that if anyone should know, it should have been Ned Stark. Whether or not he approved, he would not have interfered unless he was sure Arya wasn't happy. And if things did go wrong in their mystery togetherness... Jon was three hundred miles north, on the Wall, and if it went downhill Robb or Ned were the only ones who could be there for her. Neither of whom knew about it, at all. Jon definitely had a nagging issue about that.

"Brooding, Mr. Snow? Never something lonely gentlemen should be left to do."

Jon recognized the voice instantly, and turned slowly to face the speaker, a small, wary grin twisting his mouth. Tyrion Lannister leaned against the barstool next to him, wearing the traditional unblemished suit and sly smile, his head not even reaching above the backrest.

"Fancy meeting you here, Lannister." Jon didn't reach a hand to shake or stand respectfully. he just watched as Tyrion raised an eyebrow before struggling to hoist himself onto the stool. It took two attempts, and was rather depressing to watch, but finally the two lopsided men were situated next to each other, regarding their opposites with guarded, skeptical expressions. Such was the norm, between them. "Travel by Winterfell often?"

"I was in the market, and thought I'd have a drink before I caught a plane," Tyrion replied, and raised a hand to the bartender. "A draft beer, if you would, sir. Something nice to wet my whistle."

"In the market?" Jon repeated, happy for the distraction from his troubling thoughts.

"Scouting a local high school prospect. Promising, if unproven. I imagine your father and I might be at odds come the next draft day, over this one, especially from a Winterfell native. Ah, thank you." Tyrion took the beer the bartender set down before him and drank long and deep. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, rather an unnatural sight in his pristinely tailored suit, the youngest Lannister sibling commented, "I've always enjoyed alcohol north of the Neck better than anywhere else. The beer where the sorrows are the worst is the beer which kills problems the most." He shrugged with a thoughtful expression before downing another gulp. "Temporarily, at least."

Jon watched the little man drink silently. He had been about seventeen when he had first met Tyrion Lannister. At the time a low office scout for the Lions, he had chased after Jon with a quiet vengeance, only to have Jon ousted by the Night Watch one pick before the Lions in the third round of the draft. Jon could never quite be sure that he liked the little man, but the fact that Tyrion had actively pursued him when he played thousands of miles from the _continent _of Tyrion's division flattered him enough to likewise earn respect... even though he suspected half of the reason Tyrion had worked so hard was purely because he was Ned Stark's illegitimate child. Sometime along the line he remembered Tyrion saying something about a soft spot for persons in unfortunate circumstances. In any case, their run-ins ever since had been cordial, if never outright friendly: the histories between their families was far too rough for that.

"Pray tell," Tyrion said, setting his shockingly empty glass back on the counter and politely gesturing for another, "what exactly was on your mind that so completely obscured happy thought on this fine day?"

Clouds had rolled in only shortly after Arya had dropped Jon off; the sun hadn't been out for hours.

"Nothing, Lannister," Jon said. Mentally, he cursed. The discomfort he felt about the secret returned in full force, actually twisting his features distastefully in reaction to the thoughts. "Nothing that need concern you."

"Come now," Tyrion drawled, the words lengthening on his encouraging tone. "A problem of my dear colleague Jon Snow is a problem of mine."

"It's not a problem."

"Fine," Tyrion said. "A concern, then."

Jon delayed replying by finishing his drink, pushing the glass away and feeling much like the weather outside. "There's nothing, Lannister."

Tyrion watched him for a moment before shrugging again. "Suit yourself. Personally, I have a sleuth of shit waiting for me that would make me like you just did. If I gave half a damn about it I might be in considerable trouble. As it were, I find that drowning myself in booze is a welcome alternative."

"It's about my sister."

_Well, that was way too easy_, Jon thought, as Tyrion Lannister raised an eyebrow and got to work on the second beer placed before him. Now that he said it, he couldn't actually decide whether or not he wanted to take it back.

"What about your sister?"

Jon shook his head. "She's keeping a secret. It's not a secret I'm comfortable with her keeping. If she's not careful, it could come back to harm more people than just her. I'm scared that she doesn't realize that."

"Secrets, eh?" Tyrion said. "I always enjoyed secrets. A trade I could actually deal in, and I excelled for a time." The little man surveyed his drink casually. "Then again, we all have a share of secrets that we wished we didn't have to keep. Must be some secret if it's as gravitationally powerful as you suggest."

Jon didn't answer, but raised a hand to scratch his hair. "I'm just uncomfortable with her keeping it from people." After a short breath, he glanced over at Tyrion suspiciously. "You pick up on things too fast, Lannister."

"A fatal flaw of mine," came the reply, without a hint of shame or regret. "Too cunning by half, too short by half, and half as likely to succeed as I am to grow to four feet, at last." He chuckled at himself, drinking more of his beer, before smacking his lips together and adding, "I will tell you that I would _kill_ to gain hold of a few of my own sister's secrets. Granted, the relationship I have with my sister seems a tad more strained and significantly less affectionate than that which you have with your own, if I may."

"I can drink to that," Jon said, and they clinked glasses, even though his was empty and he didn't actually drink. Tyrion certainly downed enough for them both. "I _am _worried, though. I just think... I think everything she's doing could be a dangerous mistake."

Tyrion rocked his head from side to side with quizzically narrow eyes before rapping a hand against the tabletop. "Then do whatever it is you feel is right to remedy the situation."

"It's not mine to remedy."

The little man finished his second beer and released a belch beneath his breath, pushing the glass away. Jon wondered where the alcohol went; the man was too small to possibly hold the alcohol as well, and as _quickly_, as he apparently had. "Then don't complain about it and stop worrying about it. Take the steps you want to take to make it better or shut the hell up. It's your choice. Now you've spoiled our time whining about useless trifles when I was so looking forward to catching up about all of the things that have changed up on the Wall."

Only minutes after he'd arrived, Tyrion slid off of his bar stool, reaching above his head to place several bills down next to his two empty glasses. Jon watched him, the irony of the statement not being lost on him; nothing changed on the Wall. Ever. "Leaving so soon?"

"Like I said," Tyrion replied, making a stiff, awkward bow, "only a short time to step in for some drinks, and time waits on no dwarf. I hope your sister situation resolves itself nicely. Until we meet again, Jon Snow."

"Lannister." Just like that, Jon watched the man waddle out of the door, leaving no trace he'd been there at all except for the glasses and the money. Jon shook his head to himself, quite conscious of the nagging doubt still looming in the back of his head as he dug in his own pocket for bills. Concern or not, he still had a flight to catch.

_Remedy the situation._

When he pulled his hand out of his pocket, Jon was not holding dollar bills. He was holding his phone, which he unconsciously unlocked and scrolled immediately into his contacts list. Realizing what he was doing, he rapidly set it down on the countertop before he completed what he had started, with "Dad" written in bright letters, his fingers inches from the "Send" button. Shocked at his near actions, Jon glared down at the screen, telling himself to close the list, pay his tab, and walk out of the bar. _It's not my secret. It's not my place to tell_. But he was only telling. Not doing. And the concern only seemed to grow in the back of his head.

The bartender came and collected Tyrion's empty glasses and the tip, asking Jon if he wanted anything else. Jon barely shook his head; he didn't look away from the phone, remembering the promise of secrecy that he hadn't actually made to Arya.

When he finally picked it up, it wasn't to put it back into his pocket.


	19. Chapter 18

**18**

As much as Gendry had enjoyed his all-star break, even with daylong mental sessions and early morning mandatory non-mandatory workouts, he found himself glad when the day turned over and he woke up knowing his team had a baseball game that night. After throwing in each of the three games in King's Landing—and not necessarily throwing well—he was eager to be back out on the field and proving himself, proving the Direwolves. The only way to do that was by to keep playing, and from the moment he woke up in the morning he knew that they had just entered the long haul on their season, where records would clash and they would be making a mad dash for the playoffs.

Opening his curtains, however, smashed his hopes to pieces. There was no sun to speak of; rain was pouring into the streets outside, the sky a dark grey and denoting no other color in any direction he could see. The visible depth of the puddles forming in low points and corners around the road suggested that it had been raining for some time, and even though it was only midmorning, it did not show any sign of stopping.

The tarp was on the field when Robb drove the two of them to the Great Keep, but there were puddles covering the outfield grass. Edric went on a crazy jog across center field and back just to see how the turf felt, and when he got back to the dugout with rivers of water running out of his blonde hair his face was grim enough to answer how he felt about playing, even the evening game scheduled yet hours away.

The warm-up that day was slow and lethargic, batting practice being handled completely in the underground batting cages maintained in the clubhouses for both the visiting and away teams. Luwin gave a noncommittal response the only time a player came up with either the courage or the foolishness to ask what the status of their game was. The pitchers spent most of their early afternoon lounging about, with no space to adequately warm their arms up. With each hour that passed, the rainfall seeming to abate before oscillating back to downpour, the hopes for playing that night became lower and lower. He tried to sneak some privacy in to get a call off to Arya, as he hadn't been able to do so the day before, but yet another poor thing about everyone being constrained to the clubhouse was that _everyone _was constrained to the clubhouse. There was no way he could have made the call without being overheard, so he settled for shooting off a quick text that didn't get an answer before trying to waste time with his teammates.

It was two hours before gametime when Luwin came into the clubhouse and announced that the game had officially been canceled, to be made out for with a day-night doubleheader on the final day of the series. A few groans went up from around the clubhouse, but mostly just relief that they didn't have to try and wait out several hours of rain delay to push a game deep into the early hours of the morning. Many of the players immediately made for the locker room, intent to leave their small prison of the past few hours. Others split for the weight room or the film room, leaving only a few, including Gendry, Robb, and Edric, sitting and conversing in low tones.

Luwin watched his players disperse, Rodrik Cassel standing by his side with an unhappy scowl all over his leathery features. Once the room had relatively settled, he turned until his eyes caught sight of Gendry and he strode over. "Gendry. Mr. Stark would like a word with you in his office, at your convenience."

"Oh," Gendry said, raising an eyebrow in surprise and glancing at Robb questioningly. His captain shrugged. "What about?"

"He didn't say," Luwin replied, already turning away, "but I would suggest you don't keep him waiting too long."

Their manager moved away in the direction of his own office. Cassel finished a conversation with one of the starters and followed a moment later. Gendry stood and made a joke about being traded to slight chuckles from everyone seated in their arrangement. Robb shrugged once more, looking completely unknowing, which Gendry returned before striding out, eager to discover what Ned Stark had to tell him. He tried to fathom it as he walked, but any transaction was seriously unlikely—he would just about faint if he had been traded, although he supposed it wasn't impossible—and anything else general manager-related didn't seem to be in his works. Maybe a complication about his contract. He was relatively certain there hadn't been a clause about riding motorcycles in it...

The brightly-lit corridor leading straight to Ned Stark's quaint office was empty. Gendry wasn't sure when the owner had arrived in the day, since he hadn't seen the man enter through the clubhouse, but knowing him it may have been rather early. Gendry strode up and rapped on the door lightly with a knuckle, cracking it open ever slightly once he heard the gruff "Yes?" from the other side.

Ned Stark peered over at him from where the owner stood behind his desk, half-turned away with both hands on his sides. "In," the man hissed. The usual warmth or in the very least familiarity were void from the man's voice. Also, even catching only a glance of a down-turned, half-shadowed face, Gendry wasn't sure he had ever seen Ned Stark looking so gaunt.

The man wasn't the only thing off about the room. Only one of the two overhead fluorescent lights was lit, along with a bright desk lamp, shading the office in shadow. What was more, the usually flawlessly dressed man had his dress coat draped across the back of his chair, the top button of his dress shirt undone and his white sleeves rolled up over his elbow. That was shocking enough, until Gendry realized that the bottle he had taken as ornament on the desk was actually open, a short glass filled halfway with scotch resting next to it. Ned Stark beckoned him over with an icy arm as he turned to face the newcomer. His expression, except for the dark, searching look also uncommon to his eyes and brows, was unreadable.

"Sir," Gendry greeted, nodding.

A long moment went on in silence, Ned Stark staring at him as though carving him up for a roast. Bigger, most definitely stronger, Gendry felt as though he were being beaten down punch for punch without knowing why they were fighting, and also not knowing why in the hell he was standing in his boss's office feeling very much like a base runner left out to dry. When Ned Stark finally spoke, Gendry found himself wishing fervently with every bone in his body that the man had prolonged the silence.

"Whatever you have with my daughter. End it."

For a man whose playing days were behind him, Ned Stark couldn't have thrown a better fastball at Gendry's face if he had been twenty years younger. Before he could stop it, his jaw fell flat open, a disbelieving gasp leaving his throat. Strange noises, the attempts of speech, tried to leave in some comprehensive form and failed. He gulped, mind racing, gulped again, a third time, trying to prevent his eyes from darting and quite aware of the sweat that had exploded across his forehead as if it had just been waiting for the opportunity to flow.

"What?" he finally gasped.

Ned Stark was not amused. His eyes passed from lethally dark to hyper-homicidal. "You heard me."

"How—" _No, asking how he knows is just confirming it._ "What are you talking about?"

"Skip the denial," Ned Stark retorted, his voice as sharp as swords. "No matter how long you try to run in circles, we'll end up in the same spot. Don't pretend like I'm spitting lies, because I don't lie, and I know that you wouldn't lie if I asked you. Would you like me to ask you if you are in some sort of relationship with Arya?"

Gendry tried to swallow, and found himself unable to do so. "How did you find out?"

"You're not here to ask me questions," Ned Stark snarled. "You're here to tell me that you will end what you have with my daughter immediately. Without delay."

Flabbergasted did not begin to describe the impregnable lock on his mind. It took several more times opening and closing his mouth before Gendry was able to work words back into his voice. "What? Why?"

"It's not a discussion," Ned Stark replied, and turned away from Gendry, fingers twitching towards the glass of scotch before he ran a hand through his hair, instead. He flung the other out towards the office door. "Get out. Go and end it."

Just like that, the discussion really did seem to be over. Gendry had been dismissed, and stood there glaring at Ned Stark's back with his mouth hanging open, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened. One minute, he had been striding in, looking forward to perhaps sneaking a call to Arya in with the free hours he suddenly had with his night, wondering exactly what his general manager wanted to discuss with him after a game had just been called off due to weather. The next minute, his knees felt like they were going to give out, after the secret he had thought was the most important in his life turned out to be the secret that was the most important in the universe, the secret that had failed to be kept. It was a war to remain standing. His heart had fallen out of his chest; he was under the impression it was lying two feet away from his left foot, giving one last thump before it gave out.

_What do I do? _he asked himself. He didn't know if he could move if he tried. He didn't know if he was still alive, or if he had died on the spot and his body hadn't been able to react left. He had just enough strength to do his eyes, to look down and make sure he wasn't falling apart from his feet up, to make sure he still had life in his body. _What do I do? Arya..._

End it, said Ned Stark. End it? The order chinked away at his head, as if making dents in his consciousness until it finally reached him as a possible course of action, if one he would willingly be shot before doing. The memory of holding her as she slept, listening to her soft breath, feeling her hands holding his arms around her as if the thought of him letting go scared her to death... End it? Him and Arya...

"No."

He blinked. That had sounded like his voice.

Ned Stark stiffened, but he did not turn. "It's not a debate."

_That _was _my voice_. Gendry's head was still trying to fight through his petrifying surprise, just realizing that instead of stopping dead his heart was pounding relentlessly. Nevertheless, the conviction behind his answer didn't abate as he repeated it, louder. "No."

Slowly, the Direwolves' owner spun. When they were facing each other chest-to-chest, with three chairs and a desk between them, Gendry felt entirely afraid, as though they were about to charge at one another and grapple over the man's desk. In the face of his fear, though, he clenched his fists and held his ground, forcing courage to bubble to his surface. It was like a staring contest to the death; Gendry was woefully outmatched, if that were the case, but... His heart completely vanished and his head split in two just imagining taking the pure joy he had with Arya and erasing it. He would ride this staring contest to his death willingly rather than the alternative.

Ned Stark's arms rose carefully, folding themselves together across the man's broad chest with an artistic grace. "I suppose I haven't made myself clear. I am telling you, right here, plain as day, bright as winter, that you are going to march out of that door, find my daughter, and end it, without further ado or discussion."

Gendry steeled his jaw and shook his head. "I'm not going to do that."

"Yes, you will. You're going to do it right now."

"Or else what?"

"Or else," Ned Stark hissed, drawing out the words, as if it pained him just to say them, as if it was an effort to make his voice form them. "Or else... I will cut you from this team. Today. You will be unemployed in the morning."

Gendry's breath left his body. It was simply there one moment and gone the next. "You wouldn't do that."

Ned Stark reached down and pulled the phone receiver off of its outlet on his desk. He lifted it to his ear, the other hand reaching in preparation to dial a number. His eyes never left Gendry's. "Watch me. One call to finances, another shout to the league, and off you are to the streets. You have ten seconds to walk out of the door and do as I've told you."

"Why?" Gendry cried. "What did I do?"

The phone was slammed back into its place so heavily that Gendry took a step away. Ned Stark's fiery, icy, horrifying stare sent him back another. "I will not see you with my daughter. I won't." Ned Stark shook his head, running another hand through his hair. "You were close from the beginning, I knew that. You got along better than I've ever seen anyone get along with her. I just didn't expect it to come to... to this..."

"Look, I'm sorry we didn't tell you. We were just..." _Shit_. He was actually forced into this quandary. It was actually happening. He could hear his dejected voice, the disbelief in his tone. "We were scared that this would happen, that you wouldn't let it be."

"Well, you were fucking right," Ned Stark said. Gendry blinked in surprise; he wasn't entirely sure he'd heard the man cuss before. "And I will not stand for it."

"Why not?" Gendry exclaimed. "Sir, why... what's wrong with us?"

Ned Stark slammed a palm down onto his desk. He was officially angrier than Gendry had ever seen him before. "_You _are _wrong _for _her_!" the owner roared. The man took a deep breath and lowered his voice considerably. The mirth was no less present, however. "_You_ will hurt her. I can see it. I see it when I look in your bloody eyes. You will _not _harm my daughter. I will not allow it."

"I would never, sir! I would never hurt her, I can't—"

"You can, and you will."

"How?"

His boss's features became stormier than those outdoors. "You are too old for her. You come from rough. You are rough." Ned Stark raised his head, and stared long and hard into Gendry's face. "Your temper escapes your control. You can't stand to have something under your skin. When you're pushed over the edge, you lash out, and what you lash out at, you will hit. Oh, I have seen where you come from. I have seen _you_ live before. And I will not see it happen again."

Gendry glared at the man, completely empty as to what Ned Stark was trying to say. _Me? Live before?_ It all clicked at once in his head. "Are you talking about my father? Are you talking about freaking Baratheon? Sir, I am not my father—"

"Maybe." Ned Stark did not look convinced. "You are too old for my daughter. You are too unpredictable. You are too wild."

"What are you saying?" Gendry was pleading. "What have I done that makes you say that? I lost control one time, because a freaking stadium was screaming at me! Who _wouldn't _lose their head at that? Sir, I _swear _to you, I have never touched, I have never fucking _talked _to Arya without her consent, and I never would."

"Oh, I know exactly what you've done." The icy eyes explained that it was a miracle Gendry was not already dead.

He gulped anew. "I didn't take advantage of her. I didn't want to do..." Well, no, that was a lie. He had wanted to sleep with her. _Fuck_. He tried to make himself look as frantic as he felt. "Sir, I don't know what I've done to make you think I'm not good enough for her..." Her beautiful hair, her vicious temper, her adorable laugh. He sighed. "You're right, I'm not good enough for her, but there's nothing I wouldn't do to make her smile, and I would kill myself before I hurt her in any way."

"I don't care," Ned Stark iced. "What you have done can't be undone. What you have yet to do can. One day will come where something happens. People will get hurt. One of them will be my daughter. One of them may also be you. It is for everyone's better that this ends now."

"Why you do think that? What could possibly make you think that?"

Ned Stark didn't answer. His eyes mercifully turned away from Gendry, drifting over the silent articles of his wall and office. In the distance, through the walls and the foundation of the Great Keep, thunder rumbled, as if a new storm had set on Gendry's body.

When the owner finally replied, it was ignorant of his question completely. "We have already spoken much more than necessary. Trust me when I say that if you don't go to her right now and tell her that you can no longer be together, you will regret it. For the rest of your life. And if you don't, I will personally throw out of Winterfell."

Anger welled up in his body. Fury fueled by fear and potential horror bubbled over the top of the cauldron, spilling his emotions out of him in any method possible. "So what? You think, if you do that, that will stop me and Arya from being together? You think she'd forgive you for doing that, if she feels for me what I think she feels?"

"If it doesn't stop it," Ned Stark swore, slowly rolling his sleeves back down his arms, "then it will end soon, anyway."

"Like hell," Gendry sneered. He went on the offensive, pacing a step closer to the man. "Cutting me from the team won't stop the way I feel about her. Or she about me."

The icy eyes surveyed him skeptically. "I don't believe you."

With a burst of courage greater than he had ever displayed in his entire life, Gendry crossed his arms over his chest and dug his heels in for the tidal wave. An echo from earlier threw Ned Stark's words back in his face. "Watch me."

The owner's gaze narrowed, and skepticism turned into flat disbelief. Gendry was truly beginning to expect a duel to the death before one of them left the room. With a breath whooshing between his teeth, Ned Stark said, "You would actually give up this game, in the midst of a playoff hunt that one in a million people ever get to experience, in order to be with my daughter?"

Gendry nodded. Even he was surprised by the lack of hesitation. "Yes."

For a long moment, the two men simply stared at each other, both madly defending their territory without moving a muscle. Seconds passed, then moments, then minutes. Then Ned Stark's face began to slip into a scowl, and he shook his head. "It would change nothing. And it won't, if you don't do as I say. You would see it yourself, if it came to it. You would not let it go on."

"Why not?"

"You wouldn't be able to give her the happiness she desired. Could you really watch her stay with you when you are fixing cars for a living in the slums of King's Landing?"

With a fresh burst of fury, Gendry said, "I wouldn't have to return to the cars. Someone else would pick me up. Another team. Fuck, I would travel across the world finding anyone to let me throw for them. If I throw half as hard as I did for you, they'll take me."

In that instant, Ned Stark's expression faltered for an instant. Fury morphed ever so slightly into shock and... hurt. Then there was nothing in the man's face, at all. Nothing there to see. "No. They won't take you."

The man was jockeying for leverage. He realized Gendry was right. He had to. "Of course they will." He wasn't even bragging. "_Someone _will. I'm good enough to get a contract somewhere."

He watched Ned Stark shake his head, and almost laughed. "The contract is not the issue. You would never pass the physical."

"What?" Gendry said. _What?_ "What are you saying, of course I'd pass the physical."

"No, you wouldn't." Another drum of thunder shook the floor ever so slightly as Ned Stark turned away, pacing to the other side of his desk and then sighing before replying, "Teams don't sign rookies with standing injuries. Not ones cut under mysterious circumstances."

Gendry blinked. The words confused him even more and he could only shake his head. _Standing injury?_ In a perplexed voice, he demanded, "What the hell are you talking about?"

For as furious as Ned Stark's voice had been moments before, it was as quiet as Gendry had ever heard it before. "There's a tear in the collateral ligament of your throwing arm. You would need Tommy John surgery to repair it, and that's the only way another team would ever sign you."

The world stopped. "What?"

Ned Stark held silent and Gendry's head threatened to explode. A tear in his elbow... Well, that would certainly explain the pain he had been experiencing. As if to feel the injury, he glared down at his arm and flexed it. The action tinged him distantly, ached ever so slightly, like normal, but otherwise gave no indication that a serious injury had developed in something so critical to his success.

"How do you know?" he wondered aloud, and actually considered it then. He hadn't had an MRI since... "How can you possibly know that I have a tear in my elbow?"

"Because it's been there all along," Ned Stark breathed softly. "I signed you with it. I saw it in the very first MRI you ever had, in your physical. You've had it the whole year, you've been throwing with it the whole year. The tear has been there the whole time."

Gendry's heart stopped dead. A moment passed before the world came back into focus, and he heard a pardon escape his lips without conscious effort. His knees felt weaker than before; he nearly crumbled before locking them, managing to stand upright through sheer will, alone. He reached for something to stabilize himself, but there was nothing there. The right elbow on his body suddenly twanged in agony, and he clapped his left hand to it, only to find that it wasn't actually in pain. He stared down at it, disbelief, shock, horror, incredulity, confusion all pooling in his mind. Then, betrayal and fury surged inside of him like a raising wave and he lifted his eyes onto Ned Stark.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The owner, apparently unfazed by his dangerous voice, crossed his arms, and quietly replied, "I could ask you the same question."

"You had NO RIGHT!" Gendry's chest heaved and he took a step backwards, still holding his elbow. "You... how could you do this? You had no right to keep this from me! You let me go out there and throw with a motherfucking tear in my elbow?! What if it had been worse?"

"Then we would have put you through surgery, as per the terms of your contract," Ned Stark answered. "Rehabbed you. If we liked what we saw, we would have re-signed you for next year and brought you back. But you threw and throw ninety-eight miles per hour with that tear, and it hasn't bothered you anymore than it did at the beginning. You were happy, the team was winning. There was no need for anyone to know."

"Are you fucking _joking_? There is a fucking tear in my elbow! I fucking needed to know that!"

"Had I told you, it very well might have affected how you threw. You may not have succeeded in the minor leagues. You probably would not be here today. With unaffected confidence, you are a major league pitcher, and I want nothing more than for you to meet continued success."

Gendry was so angry that he could feel the beginnings of tears threaten to form in his eyes. "Except for the fact that I won't be fucking signed by any-fucking-body because you kept a season-ending injury away from me! _Four _months ago! You... You!..."

He tried to take a reign of himself, but couldn't. With a roar and rage, he whirled around and lashed out at whatever was in reach. What was in reach was a glass vase sitting on top of a shelf on the back wall next to the door. The back of his hand caught it and sent it sliding off of its place. On its way off the shelf it knocked another piece of glassware off with it, which pulled third piece off, as well. All three clattered off and fell towards the floor faster than he could watch them. They shattered, millions of pieces of glass splintering in every direction. Gendry felt little pieces strike all across his leg; one ricocheted high enough to bite into his cheek. The piercing screech of the fracturing glass brought him grinding to a halt, however, his anger offset by being startled at what he had done. He slowly brought his arm down from where the backhand motioned had left it, his chest heaving.

From behind him, he heard Ned Stark sigh. "And what happens when my daughter is around you and you lose that control?"

Gendry whirled back around, nearly growling in frustration. Through clenched teeth, he declared, "I would never—"

"You just did," Ned Stark cut him off. The man had a grim, cruel set to his face, one that looked completely unnatural, as he did the top button up on his dress shirt once again. Tightening his tie, he continued, "If Arya had walked through that door, unbeknownst to you, you would have taken her head off."

Gendry had nothing to say. He had no way to prove himself, to defend himself. _What is wrong with me?_ What he had just done... he never did. He never lost control, he never lashed out. He always contained his temper, because he was constantly afraid—_constantly _afraid—that he would hurt someone if he didn't. And Arya... Arya was more precious to him than life itself. If she had come through the door, he could have pulled himself back. He _would _have pulled himself back.

Wouldn't he have?

"No," Ned Stark said, as if he had read Gendry's mind. "That's the wrath of a Baratheon. 'Ours is the fury.' That's what Robert always said to me, and he never failed to prove it." The owner drew his coat off of the chair and slid his arms through it thoughtfully. "If you've never seen it, it's been there the entire time."

_No. No. It's not. It's not there_. _I am in control. I can always be in control._ Doubt slipped between the thoughts, into the crevices in his minds, in the depths of his fears, in the vivid images of his horrors. Horror bloomed as though Arya herself was staring up at him from the ground, glaring at him with mistrust and fear, and he tried and failed to swallow the lump growing in his throat.

While he stood there, lost and terrified in his own thoughts, Ned Stark straightened and buttoned his suit jacket before retrieving an umbrella from a hook on the wall behind him. Turning back to Gendry, the man sighed. "I have said all I am going to say. I am genuinely sorry that I hid your elbow tear from you. It was the wrong thing to do at the time, and I knew it, and I said nothing. Perhaps you, Luwin, and I should sit down and discuss how you would like to go about handling it."

"Handling it?" Gendry repeated incredulously. "Handling it? How the fuck am I supposed to handle it? Chop off my fucking arm and start throwing with my left hand?"

Ned Stark frowned. "No. I was thinking in reference to your season. I doubt you would like to stop now for surgery. Furthermore, the recovery may not place you at your current level of success. If you return, it may not be at the same level. You may not be able to throw as hard. Your accuracy may be affected."

Gendry's blood began to boil, roiling over the two punches Ned Stark had just delivered to his psyche. His clenched fists fell open, and his voice was so angry that he merely sounded exhausted. "How could you possibly keep this from me? How could you not tell me that I was playing with an injury I may never recover from, even after fucking surgery?"

"Like I said," Ned Stark droned sadly, with an appropriately horrible expression, "I am sincerely sorry that I kept it from you. But you are successful through your injury. If it becomes worse, then I will, of course, have to place you on the DL and have you undergo surgery."

"But now I won't," Gendry said. "Now I'll keep fucking throwing. Because if you fucking cut me no one will pick me up. Regardless of how well I throw."

If he hadn't have been so angry at the man at that moment, Gendry may have pitied the shame and displeasure that crossed Ned Stark's face. "You're going, now, to break up with my daughter. When that is finished, you will return to my team. When you have, you may sit down with Luwin and I and we will discuss what we want to do about your elbow."

Gendry listened without really hearing. A hundred things were looping through his mind, all of them unwelcome. Elbow injury, smashing glass, Arya's face, horrorstricken realization of what he had done, elbow injury. He physically groaned at the guiltless oppression pressing into his head, so angry and hurt and fearful that he nearly collapsed. His legs her shaking, his arms were shaking, he felt as though stars were dancing in front of his vision even if they weren't. Trying to take giant breaths to calm himself, he made himself face the unthinkable, irrational position he found himself in.

"You give me a fucking ultimatum," he growled, half a moan and laden with every emotion in the book, "and you don't realize that by doing so you probably ruin my life."

"Believe me, Gendry." It was the first time in the conversation that Ned Stark had used his name; it struck his heart like an arrow, piercing and wrenching and mutilating. "Nothing hurts me more than this. But between protecting my own and protecting you, I have no choice."

Gendry stood stock still, glaring at the place Ned Stark vacated as the older man moved out from behind his desk, letting out a shuddering breath as though he was in as much pain as Gendry was. It felt as though they had been locked in the room since sunrise—sunrise somewhere—and that they had just warred with Gendry's life at stake. An hour ago Gendry had been bored and happy; now he felt as though his chest had been torn to bits and his heart was leaking past his desperate hands, draining away everything he loved and wanted in the process.

Ned Stark passed him without a word after switching off the desk lamp. At the door, Gendry heard the owner touch the doorknob before a pause followed, the only sound being the crackling of broken glass beneath polished shoes. Then a sigh. "You have until morning. Better that she have a broken heart than a broken life."

The man opened the door quietly and closed it behind himself without a sound, leaving Gendry standing in the office, alone, in enough agony and anguish to weep, lost enough to feel as though he wasn't living. His eyes slid down his arm, towards his elbow. The pain. He should have done as Arya had told him, and gotten it looked at. _Arya_. Arya Arya Arya. He couldn't let her go; he didn't think he would ever be strong enough for that. In a matter of weeks, everything he did had come to revolve around her. Every breath he took smelled of her. Every minute of thought bounced first off of her face. He remembered the feel of her in his arms as he made love to her, the lazy smile she gave him afterward, the unguarded affection of her voice as she declared him as belonging to her. Standing alone in Ned Stark's dim office, threats and possible futures and the darkness of his ultimatum pressing down upon him, he closed his eyes and thought of the shattered vases. He thought of Arya, her stormy eyes, her trusting smile, and tried to tell himself once again that he could never hurt her. In any capacity. Emotionally. Physically. It couldn't possibly happen.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that tears were running down his face. Gasping, he reached up and touched them, his fingers coming away wet and glistening. He stared at them, stared at his agony. His fist curled, hiding the tears from his view. He closed his eyes and buried himself in steel, trying to _think_. But he couldn't. There was no good choice, no good option, no loophole to sneak through and steal back the happiness that had been wrenched away from him so _quickly_. Backed into a corner, caught between a rock and a hard place, he was completely lost.

That was when anger began to boil up, pushing a few tears of fury out of his eyes in the process, forcing him without much conscious thought to swing around and heave the door open.

Gendry charged out, sprinting down the hall and back into the main clubhouse area, nearly knocking Quent off of his feet where the reliever was conversing with Desmond. He didn't have time to offer an apology, sprinting away from their curses and out into the main area. Only a few people were still mulling about, none of them Ned Stark, and Gendry didn't hesitate as he tore towards the exit.

The concourse was empty. Gendry slammed through the doors onto it and immediately shot off towards the nearest exit, no time to make any more than a rudimentary guess as to Ned Stark's destination. It only took him a few long moments of travel before he burst through the door, not caring that it was closing and locking behind him, not caring that he was lurching headlong into the pouring rain in a dry-fit t-shirt and sweatpants.

The rainfall splattered into his face instantly. In a matter of moments, he knew that his clothes would be soaked completely through, but he didn't care. He whirled his head around, already sending droplets of water flying off of his hair, searching and searching with his eyes until he caught sight of a retreating back dressed formally, approaching the street that would take the man across the road to the parking lot.

"Hey!" Gendry screamed, striding after Ned Stark. "Hey!"

The man was just about to step out into the street when he heard the cries, and turned before taking a few steps back towards Gendry. Realizing who had followed him, Ned Stark stopped and tipped the umbrella farther into the water stream so that he could survey Gendry clearly, as clearly as he could through a torrential downpour.

Gendry approached until he was within a dozen paces, the cold rain dripping down his face and back. He still had to shout to be overheard over the rain. "Who are you so say we can't be together? Who are you to say I'll hurt her? Who the fuck are you to say I can't make her happy?"

"I am her father!" Ned Stark roared back, his eyes gleaming dangerously between raindrops.

In Gendry's previous state, he would have flinched back; now, Ned Stark's fury only slammed into his wall of rage and dissipated. "And I am her freaking lover! And her best friend! And the only person she's ever trusted completely in her entire life!"

"I won't stand here and listen to anything else," the team owner replied, shaking his head. "I made my decision. You have your choice. I promise you, I'm not wrong, and should you fail to do as I've said you'll be on the streets and lose her anyway."

"You think so?" Gendry yelled, and splashed closer in his vehemence. "Fine! Go ahead! Cut me! I don't need you! I'll fucking pay for my own bloody surgery! I'll fucking pay for the rehab! I'll come back on my own, without your help, without your contract! Just fucking watch me do it!"

Ned Stark scoffed, grimaced. "You have been paid barely three hundred thousand dollars, before taxes. Half of that will be gone with your surgery and rehab, more if you're not lucky. Where will you live? How will you support yourself in the meanwhile? Will you live for free?"

"I have enough to make it through the rehab," Gendry retorted, but inside he wasn't so sure of himself. Three hundred thousand _was_ plenty enough to make it through the required surgery, and enough to live on for maybe five years, if he treated it right... but...

"What happens if you don't recover?" Ned Stark wondered loudly, as lightning clapped over their heads. "Tommy John is horrible. Some are never the same. Some completely lose their nerve. Some just can't put it back together afterwards. What is your fallback, Gendry? I suppose there are always cars to fix in King's Landing."

The thunder of the lightning blast cascaded over them, as if summoned by Ned Stark's words. Gendry's breath caught; the man was exaggerating, he had to be. Tommy John was serious, yes, but if it was tended correctly... if he made the right choices... if he made sure to take care of his arm, to not rush himself back, to not try to do things he couldn't do... What was his alternative? Arya...

"And how will Arya react to a mechanic?" her father drawled. The man had never spoken so cruelly. If Gendry hadn't seen his mouth forming the words, he never would have believed what he was hearing. "What end do you see, Gendry? Marriage?" The word was accompanied by a cringe. "A family? Whatever she says to you, do you really think she could have everything she wants in her life if she spends all of it with a mechanic as a husband? When she grew up a baseball player's daughter? When two brothers play in the major leagues? When her eyes looked at you first because you could throw a baseball?"

_That's not true_, he wanted to scream. But it was._ "__I was just walking around and I noticed a game going on and decided to watch for a bit." _Words spoken eons ago, in a car shop in the dead-end heart of King's Landing. So long ago that Gendry had to actually struggle to remember the person he had been, instead of the successful man he had become. So far back that it was difficult to imagine what his life had been before Arya had come into it. _Decided to watch for a bit. You throw a nice fastball._ If it hadn't been for that fastball, if she'd lost interest and walked away before he'd gone out to throw the inning in the stupid pickup game, if she'd turned left instead of right and never heard the game in the first place...

_I am a chance. I am a lucky spot. I am nobody, from nowhere._

Every word was a punch to his gut, and every one sent a little bit more breath gushing from his chest, leaving him gasping for breath as he came to his horrible truth. Ned Stark watched him silently, bending past his breaking point and realizing something more horrifying than the thought of waking up back in the orphanage, fresh from a wonderful dream, more terrifying than bring cut on the spot and having to force his way away from all of the fantasies at his fingertips, back to the shop: to him, Arya was everything; his guardian angel, his savior, his motivation and inspiration and heart.

To her... who was he? An investment. A long shot investment that had lucked out big.

If he lost her, he... he didn't know what he would do. If he hurt her, he would know no method of punishment that would come close to the penance he required. If there was no her in his life, then he was just Gendry again, the broken kid with no family and no life, who was destined to spend the rest of his days leading a nobody existence in a city that smelled of junk and would swallow him up and smother him into a dungeon of tar until the day he died.

If she lost him... she had a life. She had a dream that had nothing to do with him. She had something she would fight for, _could _fight for. And he was holding her _back_. A young, aspiring girl who had incredible ability at her call, settling for an uneducated, still-green, lucky as hell hotshot who could trip over his own fame and sprawl in the mud for eternity.

How could he let himself do this? How could he do this to her? _What_ had he been thinking?

"If you really care about her, then," Ned Stark said, someplace where rain was running down Gendry's face like tears, a place just barely holding a connection to the crippling thoughts holding his body in shock. "If you really care about her, then you know that is the last thing that would be good for her. If you really care about her..." Ned Stark glanced up at the stormy sky; he almost looked sad. "You already know what you have to do."

The man turned and assessed the street once again before lowering his head again and striding across it, vanishing behind the various sheets of rain into the parking lot beyond. Gendry was left in the rain, the chill in his bones not coming close to the frost in his heart, eating away at him, boring in his very soul every second, with every droplet of water that hammered into his skin and hair and clothes.

He could have stood there until he died. Half of him felt like he already had.

There was nowhere for him to go, nothing for him to do. Any way he looked at himself, all he saw was a problem that couldn't be solved. Every time he tried to turn his heart to steel and insist that everything would be all right, he knew instead that it was all wrong.

Everywhere he looked, every possible remedy to the situation he tried to come up with, ended in failure. If he stayed with Arya, it would be selfish, forced, an end to everything he had ever dreamed of; he would cut from the Direwolves, with nowhere to go and no job to fall into. The right choice. For the wrong reasons. If he did as Ned Stark bade, if he allowed himself to do the unthinkable, it would be letting go the best thing that had ever happened to him, picking up the burden he had placed on her back and laying it over his own shoulders for the rest of eternity. Returning to the bullpen. Returning to the game he loved.

The wrong choice. For the right reasons.

He couldn't tell if he was crying or not. It was raining too hard. If he refused, he lost. If he complied, he lost. Everywhere he looked there was no way out of this hell. He wanted to scream. He wanted to fall to his knees in the shadow of the Great Keep and beg the gods to spare him from this agony. But he didn't; there was no way to reverse time now, no way to undo what had to be done.

In the darkness of his heart, Gendry knew he had already lost.

* * *

From his dry, pleasant rental vehicle, Tyrion watched the exchange beneath the bowels of the storm with a rather surprising bout of regret. The flashes of lightning from above and the rumbling of thunder made it all too easy to imagine the tempest as a godly representation of the emotional war the two men were fighting out in the elements, the body language of the younger of the two, Waters, suggesting that he was nearly fighting for his life. He could hear nothing of the battle, of course—his windows were fastened against the rain, and despite his rather ungentlemanly tendencies he tried to avoid eavesdropping when he already knew the subject of conversation—but not much was left to the imagination when the two were facing off as if one of them would not survive the encounter.

Tyrion wasn't privy to what exactly Ned Stark had put to the young man, but it wasn't much of a venture to guess. He had been passing by the Direwolves' apartment complex on missions of his own importance when he watched Jon Snow and his youngest sister stumble out the previous morning, two persons he would not have expected to see doing such a thing. Much simpler things had set off suspicion in Tyrion's mind before, and he had enough of a smell for his own ambitions that he made sure he knew exactly where Jon Snow was for the remainder of his day and arranged a meeting to surreptitiously get to the bottom of the strange happenings.

It was a gamble, assuming that the "secret" Jon Snow's sister was keeping was a relationship, and an even greater one to assume that the relationship was with the man he had been ordered by his own father to ruin, but Tyrion was comforted by the intelligence he had carefully uncovered that seemed to suggest a closeness between Arya Stark and Gendry Waters: she was the one who discovered him, a number of occasions seemed to place them together at times in places that would imply very close friendship, and a hotel attendant he had grudgingly decided was reliable could place them together on a roof in an embrace that may possibly be considered intimate. Tyrion had placed far riskier bets in his life and won, and every step he took made him more confident that he had made the correct one for his ends.

Nevertheless, he was unsurprised and yet unprepared for the twinge of guilt that struck him as he watched Ned Stark turn away and stride off in the rain, leaving young Waters standing alone, his shoulders slumped in heavy dejection, seemingly unaware of the ocean cascading down upon him. Tyrion was not heartless, something many people, including his beloved sister, seemed to insist upon. He was not beyond admitting that he had quite probably just ruined Waters' life, and not beyond admitting that he felt absolutely horrible about it. Also contrary to popular belief, Tyrion Lannister had his dreams and hopes. Once, he had dreamed to actually have a life beyond a work. His twisted mind had cruelly allowed him to fantasize about a wife, a family. Horrible deception had once crushed that, but he had foolishly refused to give up. In a mix between vengeance and trying to redeem himself, he set his sights instead on a general manager position, a long shot he thought was much more probable than the lie he had, for a short time, thought he was living. He knew exactly how much he wanted to be a general manager, exactly how much he hated everything, including himself, that got in his way of that goal.

Therefore, it actually made him almost—_almost_—make him rethink what he had done. It almost made him wish that he hadn't taken the step that he had, made the prod that pushed Jon Snow past the point of comfort, the push that would spell doom for Gendry Waters' career. Or life. Depending on which end of the deal he chose. Ned Stark's proffered choices were easy to unravel: the girl or the game. Waters couldn't have both. He had to choose which he wanted more. Given back the event that had shaken and changed him, Tyrion didn't know which he himself would have decided. Either way spelled heartbreak, of a different nature.

And so Tyrion sighed, as he fished his phone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and located his father's number, half-feeling like the pounding of the rain on the hood of his car was the gods' punishment for his sins. He half-welcomed it.

Tyrion watched Waters standing devastated in the rain, as still as death as twice as horrid, as he listened to the ringing of his father's line. His cell phone was routed directly into his father's office, he knew, specialized for priority acceptance; a very familial twist of irony that it was because he was ruining the life of someone his father hated rather than because he was the man's son.

Tywin answered on the third ring. "What do you have?"

"It's finished," Tyrion answered quietly.

"Excellent," Tywin growled, the low hum of approval and victory the only signs Tyrion he would ever receive that his father was pleased with his actions. "What is the outcome?"

"It doesn't matter," Tyrion said, forcing his eyes away from Waters. He didn't know how much more he could watch. If the young man chose the girl, he would not have a team. If the young man chose the team, he would not have the girl. Without the team, he had nothing. Without the girl, he would balk and falter and play his way off of the field. Either way, Tywin had his victory, and Tyrion had his guilt. "He'll be ruined. The deed is done."

"I'm very happy to hear it."

Tyrion leaned his head back against the headrest with far less satisfaction than he had predicted, glaring down at the extensions on the pedals he had to use to drive, feeling the uncomfortable seat he had to sit upon to see over the dashboard. Cruel reminders of the hindrances the gods gave him. Cruel reminders of the sacrifices he had made for this moment. Cruel reminders of the sins he had made for what he wanted most. "And my reward?"

"Of course," Tywin replied, the triumph leaving his voice just a bit. "Baelish just accepted an offer from Harrenhal as their new GM and Varys has resigned without explanation, both in the span of a day. It hasn't been announced to the press yet, but there's sure to be a commotion when it is. One would almost think they had something in the works... except they never work together."

"Never say never, Father," Tyrion advised cautiously. _You once said I'd never amount to anything. You once said I'd never have what I wanted. _It _was _what he wanted. "Then the position is mine."

"Effective immediately," Tywin confirmed. "There is much work to be done here, some things I need to speak with you about before you take up your office officially. In light of recent events, I thought perhaps it was time we examined Joffrey's role with the team with a heavier eye than we have in the past. I want you back in King's Landing tomorrow."

This certainly didn't feel like a victory. Tyrion had imagined himself feeling as though he had swiped the throne out from under his father's feet, not been placed on it as a marionette with strings still in the man's golden hands. "Understood."

"In the meantime, though," Tywin continued, "I would like you to call our mutual friend Jon and extend the offer we spoke of. It's time for a change, I think... and old enemies can easily become the most lethal of weapons. Wouldn't you agree? Consider it your first act as the Monarchs' new general manager."

"I'll do so immediately."

Without further ado, Tywin disconnected the call and left Tyrion staring at the silent cell phone in his lap, wondering if he had not been played exactly as he had been trying to play. Guilt and indecision surged anew, and he glanced up, out of the rain-soaked window, through the storm to where the subject of his ploy had stood sadly beneath the thunder. Waters was no longer there; whether he had gone back into the stadium or far away, Tyrion did not know, but if he could imagine the turmoil rocking the boy's heart—and he could—either one would have made a quality guess.

Sighing to himself, Tyrion found the new contact he needed, stared at the number wondering if it wasn't just another trick of his father, another exploitation of his eagerness, before he made himself press the call into motion. Waters had already lost, after all; as powerful as his discomfort was, Tyrion reasoned that there was no need for both of them to collapse beneath the mistake.

"Hello, Connington. Just smashing to hear your voice, as well. I would like to discuss a business proposition with you. Your client will not be displeased with my offer."


	20. Chapter 19

**19**

Bored out of her mind, lounging about the Manor and sulking over the fact that the Direwolves' game had been cancelled, Arya shot a text message off to Gendry, asking if there was some way she could see him, due to his surprising freedom for the night. In a way, it could have been an opportunity for them to spend some time together that may not come again for months, literally. The team was battening down the hatches for the rough road leading into and through September, and Luwin might easily get stricter over the free time of his players, especially if they maintained their playoff hunt with the ferocity.

With a horrendous storm on outside, though, and Gendry not answering her, there was little for Arya to do. She couldn't take Nymeria for a walk. Her brothers had both proven themselves typical men in their willingness to spend time doing fun things, even though they were hardly old enough to be considered such. With anything her mother had in mind to do probably involving housework or social labor, that left only Sansa on her list, with her father still down at the stadium.

She had picked Sansa up promptly at the airport the previous evening as she had promised, but her elder sister had barely said a word since, despite several blunt force demands Arya had made and a number of much more subtly placed inquiries by both Catelyn and Ned. Arya had done as Sansa desired, and lied about her elder sister's presence; she claimed it was due to wanting some fresh air after having spent so long cooped up in King's Landing. Ned Stark sniffed the ruse out like a hawk, glaring furiously at her as he did so, as if something else had ignited his mood even before Arya opened her mouth. With his usual icy calm, he tried to interrogate out of Sansa her reasons for returning to Winterfell, but, somehow, Sansa managed to withstand his questions and frustration without giving up any details. Arya had struggled to, but been successful at keeping what she knew about the situation, as well; it was not hers to tell and Sansa clearly wasn't ready for it to be out in the open.

Therefore, Sansa had spent the entirety of the day locked in her old room. Arya heard Catelyn climb the stairs to knock every now and again, wondering if there was something Sansa needed, but the rest of the family seemed to have caught and accepted the drift, and decided to ignore her until she wanted to be acknowledged, giving her the privacy she desired in the meantime. If she allowed herself to admit it, Arya could barely contain herself from storming across the hall, kicking in Sansa's door, and ordering the elder sister to spill the beans on whatever had occurred down in King's Landing. She held herself back, though; something about the power and emotion of secrets bounced through her head, offering the inspiration for restraint.

On that subject, over forty-five minutes had passed since her last message to Gendry, and he still hadn't responded. It annoyed her, rather than concerned her, but also struck her as out-of-character for him; he was the type of person that shot back texts as soon as he received them, saying exactly what was on his mind and not caring in the slightest. He must have been busy with something, to ignore her for so long. Which begged the question, what was he doing?

For a while, she watched the storm out of her window, enjoying the lightning flashes crossing the sky and the thunder causing the house below her to tremble slightly. The rain pattering against her window soothed her mind, but it couldn't keep her from glancing towards her phone every few minutes. She cursed, annoyed that she was annoyed that he hadn't texted her back. She wasn't obsessive; she just liked to hear from him, and she hadn't seen him at since yesterday. That was a long time. She missed him.

Even so, that when the time stretched to an hour and a half, she finally decided that she had had it. Screw it; he wasn't working. If he wouldn't talk to her, when they had a chance for time together that wouldn't come again for a long time, then she would just go freaking find him herself. There were only a few places he could be, anyway: his apartment or the stadium. Maybe the Godswood, but she didn't think he'd enjoy it nearly as much as she thought he had on their date if she wasn't with him.

After telling her mother about her departure, to a vague response of "Fine. Have fun!", Arya quickly left the property of the Starks, enjoying the rain hitting the car's windshield almost as much as she'd enjoyed watching the storm from inside Stark Manor. Still glancing down at her phone on the passenger seat every few moments to see if he'd finally responded, she steered casually in the direction of the Great Keep, assuming he wouldn't be stuffed up in his own apartment in the middle of a rainstorm without being able to text her back.

The lots surrounding the stadium were empty when she arrived, the stadium mostly dark. Not a soul was moving about in the gale, except for a few crazy souls dashing between establishments in the more commercial buildings of downtown a couple of blocks away. Only once she'd parked did she realize that she had forgotten an umbrella. She cursed and considered waiting for a lull in the storm, before deciding that there wasn't likely to be one anytime soon. After biting her lip and preparing to be soaked, she threw open her door, gasped as frosty water drops crashed into her body, and paused just long enough to lock her car before sprinting across the street. She didn't slow until she'd reached the relative shelter of the stadium gate, where the overhand kept at least the heaviest of the drops from slipping under and striking her. It wasn't until she stuck the key her father had been hard-pressed to give her into the gate and let herself in that she managed to completely get out of the wet, by which time a puddle of water had accumulated beneath her.

Sighing in repugnance, she rubbed her arms through her jacket as she set off in the direction of the clubhouse, water dripping off the ends of her hair onto the floor as she moved. The concourse itself was empty, which was a rare enough feat, in itself. Her squishing shoes made the only sounds as she walked. She knew that down on the field the grounds crew was probably weeping with the effort of trying to maintain the field, or else waiting out the worst part with the grim task of preparing the field for the next day looming over them. It would be a long night and a longer morning for them, if the rain ever let up.

The clubhouse appeared as empty as the rest of the concourse, when she entered it. Half of the lights were off, not a voice was to be heard from the locker room or the lounge, and even the faint aura of power that denoted Luwin's presence was absent from the air. Arya sighed, wondering if she had guessed Gendry's location wrong but moving to search every room, just in case.

She started with her father's office. His car had not been in the lot, but it would do no good to have the man suddenly walking in on them if she actually found Gendry, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she discovered that Ned Stark had left for the night. Robb and the other Direwolves had seemed to high-tail it, as well. A custodian was gathering laundry in the locker room, whom she recognized and greeted, but otherwise the locker room and lounge were silent as a tomb. Likewise were the film room and weight room empty. Remembering what Gendry had been saying about his elbow, she went into the training rooms to see if he was icing, but he was not there, either.

On the verge of abandoning her Great Keep search and driving to his apartment, she opened the door to the batting cages on the off-chance that Gendry, for some reason, was taking some swings. As soon as she did, a previously unheard thump reached her ears. Another followed a few seconds later, sounding suspiciously like a baseball hitting a padded backstop. As a third sounded through the air, Arya stepped through the door and into the room, outside the batting cage, to see what the commotion was.

Gendry stood in the cage, facing the far end, on the opposite side of the room as the door. His back was to her, bending to scoop a baseball off of the ground. What she could see of his face was blank, but the ground was littered with baseballs, twenty or thirty, at least, and as soon as he was back on his feet he crow hopped and fired the ball as hard as he could down towards where the plate would have been for the hitter. At near a hundred miles per hour, the ball slammed into the backstop, leaving a temporary dent in the pad, before ricocheting and rolling softly back in Gendry's direction. From the looks on things, he had been at it for a while. His shirt was clearly as soaked as she was, though, the fabric clinging to his muscles wonderfully and his hair glistening with wetness. It was incredibly attractive. She wondered what on earth he had been doing outside.

As he reached down for another baseball, she let the door slam shut and sighed loudly. "There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

He froze, and the baseball dropped out of his hand, rolling away into an empty corner of the cage. As she stepped towards the netting, he swiveled around to face her. She expected his face to crack one of his small grins, but his expression didn't change. His eyes may have gotten a little larger. "Arya."

"You didn't text me back for an hour," she chastised, lifting the next over her head and stepping into the cage with him. "I was just beginning to get worried."

Stepping forward, not being able to keep back a smile at seeing him, she slipped her arms beneath him and pulled herself close, uncaring of the water weight they both carried. Raising herself on tiptoes to kiss him... she stopped. His eyes were no longer watching her; they were staring straight ahead, over her head, at nothing, at the wall. He was too tall to kiss without cooperation, and the expression on his face...

She loosened her arms a bit, frowning. "What's wrong?"

He looked at her then, a long hard look that held nothing of the blue warmth Gendry's eyes usually overflowed him. "Your father found out."

Arya blinked, and let her grip around his waist slack a bit more, more focused on wondering why he hadn't returned her embrace than on the words he had just said. Then, all four slammed into her at the same time and she gasped, swearing and catching a hold of his shirt in her fists. "What?"

Gendry broke away from her, taking her hands—gently—from his back and turning his back enough to walk a few paces away. His voice was low, resigned. "He called me into his office after the game got canceled. He knows."

"What do you mean, _he knows_?" Arya cried.

"I mean, he knows, Arya!" Gendry retorted loudly, but his voice was only full of frustration, not anger. "Your father knows about us! He knows I've been seeing you, he knows how I feel about you, and he knows we slept together!"

_Oh, gods. First Sansa, then Jon, now... _Fuck_!_ "Okay, he knows. We figured he would find out eventually."

Gendry cut her off, turning to face with critical... _scared _eyes. "Did we?"

Arya ignored the question, shaking her head. "Well, he knows. What did he say? Was he angry? What did he say?"

For a very long moment, Gendry watched her sadly, and she already knew that it was bad. Her heart dropped lower every second he held his silence, until he turned away from and walked to the end of the cage to retrieve one baseball, taking his time analyzing it on the way back as if trying to decide what to say.

"He said," Gendry began, his voice shaking, "that if I didn't end what I had with you right away, he would cut me from the team."

His words were punctuated by a crash of thunder that shook the floor of the room, nearly powerful enough to make her stumble and plenty powerful enough for all of the air in her lungs to gush out of her body.

As soon as she found her voice again, she exclaimed, "What?"

"Exactly like we were afraid of," Gendry whispered, looking over the baseball, turning it over and over again. Steadfastly avoiding her eyes. Her heart dropped more. "He said I had until morning. If I don't do it by then, I'll be out in the streets."

"Gods," Arya swore, and she meant it. She wished he would look at her, so she could gain some idea of what he was thinking. "_Fuck_. How could he do this?"

He glanced at her, then, his eyes still low and unintelligible. "Weren't we expecting this? Isn't this why we were keeping it a secret, in the first place?"

"I knew it was a possibility!" Arya replied. "But I never... my _father_... I was afraid of it, but I thought that if he saw that I really wanted to be with you and you really wanted to be with me, he wouldn't care about it. I was worried because it _could _happen, but... I... _fuck_, how could he _do _this to me? To us!" She began to pace, holding her head with both hands, frantically running her fingers through her hair. Gendry watched her, unmoving, unflinching, as pale as death. "How did he find out?"

"He wouldn't say."

"The only people that knew were Sansa and Jon." She cut off, abruptly realizing that she had never told Gendry that her two siblings knew about them, but he didn't react, and she took it as a sign of acceptance. "They were both sworn to secrecy. Robb suspected, but... you didn't tell anyone else, did you?"

"No," Gendry replied, shaking his head. His eyes held no note of accusation, but she felt it strike her nonetheless.

She swore under her breath, and panic began to set in. Her father couldn't do this, it wasn't fair, he wasn't like this! This wasn't like Ned Stark at all; he was the most fair, trusting, honest man Arya had ever known, the most loving father and understanding person. Perhaps it had been wrong to hide what they had from everybody, but it had been rational, hadn't it? She cared about him too much to risk something like... something like exactly what was going to happen. Everything was becoming undone before her. The only secret that mattered to her was no longer secret; all of her worst fears were coming true. Gendry couldn't be cut from the team; everything he ever had, his hopes, his dreams, were leading up to this!

"I have to talk to my father," she announced, startled by how uncertain she sounded. "I can change his mind, I can convince him that he doesn't have to do this."

"He didn't sound as though he were willing to change his mind."

"I can change his mind," Arya insisted. "I have to." Gendry's eyes dropped, and she stopped pacing, her breath hitching. Why did it seem like he was giving up? What was he doing? "Gendry... please talk to me. What are you thinking?"

Gendry whirled and hurled the ball at the backstop, so hard that he knocked himself off-balance and had to hop twice on his plant leg before he had regained control. He glared at where it hit, away from her, for a few long moments before turning himself to face her again. Arya knew only one way to describe his face: devastated.

She gasped then, as she realized his mind, and shrank away from him, both of her hands clasped to her chest. "You're actually considering it."

"Arya..."

"How?" She could feel herself crumbling, literally feel the pieces of her heart breaking off as he watched with such regret. "Why... How can you do this? Is it me? Did I do something wrong? Did I make some mistake?"

"You did nothing," Gendry said, shaking his head anxiously, closing his eyes as he did so. "Arya, you're perfect. You're everything I want and more. I have never felt anything in my entire life like the way I feel about you."

"Then why?" she demanded, blinking through tears. Fuck, she was crying, even though the emotion rising in her chest at that moment was anger. She reached up to wipe them away while his eyes were closed, but she couldn't get her hands down before he opened them back up and saw. His flinch was almost enough to convince her that his words were true. "Why would you even... how could you even think about that?"

He hesitated, raising both of his hands to his face. Seconds passed, in which he buried himself in his palms and stayed there silently, the thoughts running through his mind only belonging to him. He finally lowered them, pain joining the horror in his expression. "Things your father said."

"What things?"

"Things about me." He shuddered, shaking his head. "Things that are true."

"Like what?"

"He made me angry," Gendry told her, but it was more like he was talking to himself. His eyes were distant and his body had gone rigid, as though he were afraid to move. "I lashed out, in his office. I destroyed some glass. I lost my temper..." He glanced up at her; there was only fear, now. "I've never been like that before. Not before... not when I was in King's Landing. If... if you had been..." He growled in frustration and pointedly took a step away from her. "Arya, if I ever hurt you, accidentally or otherwise—"

"You would never do that, stupid." She meant it to come out softly, but it ended up as more of an insinuation of the obvious. "I know you would never do that. If that's the only reason, you're being—"

"It's not," Gendry said. He glanced down at his arm, his throwing arm, and then took a massive stride on route to kicking a baseball sitting a foot away. After releasing another shuddering breath, he murmured, "I have a tear in a ligament in my elbow. It requires surgery to repair it."

Arya opened her mouth to say something and had to stop to think about what he had said, to think about what it meant, before she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What? My father knew that?" Gendry nodded. "When did he find out? How?"

"The MRI during my physical," Gendry said, as quietly as he had spoken before. "Before I signed my contract. It was there from the very beginning."

"_What_?" Arya shouted. "You're telling me that my father _knew _you had a ligament tear in your elbow _before _he signed you?"

"Yes."

She scoffed, shaking her head incredulously. "No. No. That is _not _something my father would do. He is smarter than that, he is more honorable than that. He would never do something like that to you, to his team."

"Apparently, he's not. Because he did. And I believe him."

"You have to go on the DL!" Arya blurted. Her baseball-oriented mind had kicked into hyperdrive, overriding all other rational thought. "You have to have surgery, that's Tommy John! You could be out for a year, maybe more... gods, what if your rehab doesn't go well? The ramifications on your arm could be—"

"Arya." He cut her off with a voice as sad as it was agonized. His head shifted minutely to the left and right. "I'm not going on the disabled list. I'm not having surgery."

"Why not? Of course you are! How can you expect to—"

"I've thrown all year with it." It wasn't bragging or persuading; his voice was completely flat. he might as well have told her that it was raining outside, for all his tone gave away. "We're in a playoff hunt. There's no way I'm done for the season on this."

Playoff hunt. Season. No way. _No. No no no. _"You're not going to get cut," she said softly. Tears welled in her eyes before she could stop them. Then anger followed, and she glared at him with it, stepping towards him, her fists curling, a mass of negative emotion forming in her mind. "You're actually going to walk away?"

"Arya, listen to me," he said. He was meeting her eyes now, and she saw enough hurt and angst in his gaze to dissolve the fury inside of her. He spread his arms, as if to show her all he was. "Look what I have. It's all right here. I was going to march into your father's office in the morning and demand to be cut, until he fucking told me about this." He strung out his elbow, frowning, grimacing, putting his thinking face all into one. It was enough to break her heart. In more ways than one.

She followed his train of thought before he had a chance to voice it. "But with your elbow hurt... no team will take you, not with Tommy John eating a year of contract with risky results." She closed her eyes, a single tear leaking past. "So, you choose baseball over me." Not a bad choice. _She _would definitely choose baseball over herself, she knew, in his situation.

But when she opened her eyes, he was frantically shaking his head. "Never. Never, Arya. I would choose nothing over you. _Nothing_."

Sunlight peaked through the dark night. She gasped again silently, this time for another reason than shock. Her mind caught off-balance, she recovered enough to say, "Then why do you say, you were _going _to march into his office?"

Gendry took a deep breath, his head turned downwards. "If he cuts me, where do I go? I have nowhere to go. I have nothing to do. It'll be back to the shop, back to the cars, back to freaking lying in bed at night wishing I was somewhere else, _being _someone else. _This _is who I am, Arya, me here, playing baseball, doing the only thing I'm good at! Out there, in the real world, I am nobody, I have nothing. Sugarcoat it by saying I would work hard, I would find a way to be worth something again, but the fact of it is I would be getting paid eleven dollars an hour to work on fucking cars for a living. For the rest of my life!"

"That's not true!" Arya retorted, shaking her head in refusal. "We could find a way. You have money, we can save money, we can put you through your surgery, your recovery. We'll find a way."

"There's no 'we' there, Arya. There is no way you could be there, I wouldn't let you. You deserve _so _much better than that, so much better than I could give you. And if I did have surgery, if it didn't turn out like I planned, like I wanted? If I couldn't come back from it? What then?"

"I don't know." She threw her hands into the air. "Something else. Fine, you'll fix cars for a living. On your own time. On your own pay. You can start a shop. No, you can save up and go back to school. Get a new career. Something. Anything." It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but that she was with him.

"With what experience?" he replied. "I can't change my high school grades. I can't get accepted to any school worth attending. I can't make something of myself in the shoes I wore in King's Landing. The shoes I would wear again if I was cut from the team. I can't make myself worthy of you in those shoes, Arya."

Fear turned to frustration turned to anger inside of her in a heartbeat, and she growled a screech of aggravation. "I don't care, Gendry. I don't care about that, I don't care about any of that!" How could she make him _see_? "All I care about is that I'm with you. All that matters is that we're together. Give me that, and we'll find a way through anything else, together. Anything else. All that matters is that we're together."

When she was finished, he stood before her, looking at her as if he was a trapped animal. Helpless. Lost. It conjured to mind an image of a young black-haired boy standing in an orphanage, alone and terrified, with no mother to tell him everything would be all right, no father to protect him, no future _or _past. Just terror. Exactly like she felt, when she considered for even a moment that she might have a day anywhere in the near future where she didn't have him by her side. She was already lost, imagining it. How could she ever survive without him? He was her other half, her trust, her heart. Her best friend, her confidence, her everything, everything she had tried to pretend she didn't rely on. She needed him. He was hers. She needed him like she needed air, like she needed baseball.

"Hold me," she whispered, moving towards him, in a exhausted state. He watched her approach with a mixture of restraint and eagerness. When she threaded her arms around his waist and clung to him, he hesitated for a long moment. Even when he tentatively enwrapped her in his embrace, his body did not relax. But it was enough for her, for then. She rubbed her face in his wet shirt, wiping off her tears, smelling the Gendry that was beneath the wet and the sweat and the weariness. Safe in his arms, nothing could possibly touch her. Nothing could possibly take him from her. "Everything will be all right. I promise, as long as we're together."

They stood there together, stiff and whole, complete and broken, the distant echoes of the storm outside soothing Arya, reassuring her that as long as Gendry's arms were around her, nothing could touch her. She could have stayed there forever, away from the world, away from anything that had ever mattered to her before him, and she wouldn't have minded. As it was, she didn't know how long she had been leaning against him when a tiny sigh escaped his lips, and his voice breathed softer than a breath over her head.

"I can't. I can't do this."

It was as though he had punched her in the gut. Twice. His arms fell away from her and he pulled himself off, taking several steps back, staring at her as if he thought she would attack him. Regret, fear, pain were all pooling in his eyes. And hatred. But not of her.

"You ask me to take you to a place where I can't do anything for you," he said, as though it were killing him to say every word, "where I can't provide for you, where anything you want has to come from your own pocket. Where I can't give you _anything_, except a slum home and a burden for _you _to bear. Alone. How can I ask that of you? How can you _expect _me to ask that of you?"

"I won't be alone!" she cried quickly, taking a step after him. "I'll have you, I'll have you and that's the only thing that will matter to me."

"You say that now," Gendry told her, shaking his head. "You say that now, when all you can think about is us having to go our separate ways. But what will you feel when you're actually there, when _literally _all you have is me? You can't tell me that you won't come to resent me, in time, that you won't come to resent _us_, in time."

"I can," she said bravely, and tried to reach her arms out to him while taking a step closer. He shrunk away, turning his back to her. His shoulders were shaking as his hands came up to cover his face; how could he possibly do this? It was killing him. It was killing her. "I can, and I will, Gendry. I won't resent us, not when you're there with me. I'll do anything." Tears leaked over her cheeks, but she didn't wipe them away; she needed to show him that she meant what she said, that she didn't know what she'd do if she didn't have him. "Gendry, you are my sun and stars. I know I've never had a connection with anyone else like I have with you and I doubt I ever could again, with anyone else. And I know that if we keep going down this road I will completely fall in love with you."

His shoulders stilled as he dropped his hands. His head swiveled to regard her over his shoulder, his eyes glassy and heartbroken. "I think I'm a little past that point, Arya."

Her broken heart mended, melted, then broke itself anew staring into his gorgeously honest blue eyes. Impulse, emotion, and need drove the words from her mouth. "Run away with me. Let's go. Right now. I don't care where we go, what we do. All that matters is we're together."

"Arya, are you _listening to yourself_?" Gendry groaned, on the verge of shouting at her. "Arya, I won't give you that life! I won't condemn you to it! Can't you understand that I am trying to do the right thing here? I am _trying _to give you an opportunity at happiness, one I _can't give you_! If I get cut, I'm done. There's _nothing _left. It doesn't matter where we went or what we did, I would have _nothing _to give you. I'm not good enough for you." Self-loathing was evident in his expression, his slumped shoulders and flat face confirming the feeling. "I never was. You're better off with someone else, somewhere else. Somewhere safe. I can't provide that for you."

"Yes, you fucking can!" Arya screamed. "Why can't you just _see_, you stupid bull?! I don't care about any of that! All I care about is _you_!"

For a lifetime they stared at each other, only a few feet away from each other but miles separating them. All she wanted to do was run at him, hold him, kiss him, punch him, cling to him for all of her life and never, ever let go. A second passed, and she saw it in his eyes, too, the desire for her, the desire for her company, for her friendship, for her love, only for _her_, and she thought she had him. She was already imagining where they would go, what they could do, how they could survive. It wouldn't matter; nothing would matter. They'd find a way.

And then the second passed.

A shuddering breath rasped as he sucked in a breath, and it was like a dagger had been thrust at her chest. "It's better this way."

No. _No_. "How can it be better?"

He was already backing away. Three steps away, five steps, and she knew that if she let him get away now he would never come back. "It hurts now, but it won't later. You'll forget, you'll move on. You'll find someone else and be happier for it. It's better this way."

"How the hell can you say that?" she cried. She tried to blink away her tears, but they were coming too fast for her to rid herself of them, even when she furiously wiped them away with her fingers. Trying to follow him only made him backtrack faster. She was beyond desperate; she was hysterical. "Gendry, I will never be happier than with you. I won't ever be able to forget you, I won't ever be able to stop thinking about you! You're..." A sob escaped her throat; Arya Stark didn't sob. But she was. "You're breaking my heart. Please, don't do this..."

"I have to," he groaned, apologetic and determined and _stupid_, oh so painfully stupid. She hated him for it. She loved him for it. "I have to walk away. If I have to break your heart to make _you _walk away... broken hearts can heal, Arya. But I can't heal you if I let you come with me."

She died, then. Her heart withered away, crumpled up and tossed aside like trash, and she was back in the halls of her high school, being laughed at by preppy girls who she hated and aspired to be like and never wanted to imitate, ever. Sansa was standing next to her, basking in the world's attentions and admirations, while Arya could only watch and despair, wish she was half as beautiful as her sister, wish her sister knew what it was like to be her. Insecurity, self-loathing, pain, horror, grief all crashed down upon her head. Her body fell to its knees, helpless beneath the sobs that wracked her body, useless against the flood of tears that dripped off her face, onto her shirt, onto her hands, everywhere, despair.

When she fell, Gendry's face turned from determination to horror. He took two steps forward and reached out as if to collect her in his arms one last time. "Arya..."

She shrank away from his touch as if he was on fire, kicking against the floor in her desperation to avoid his hands, his horrible, gentle hands. "Get away from me! Get away from me! Get away from me... Get... away..."

Her fit descended into weeping, unable to continue. He stood frozen, halfway into a crouch, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Through a veil of tears, it looked like he was shimmering, wavering between one point and another. For a long time, as she tried to scrabble away from him until finally her back was to the wall, the cage pulled taut behind her, he remained there, staring at her as if she had pulled a gun and sent a bullet into his heart. But she hadn't; he had, into _her_.

Slowly, Gendry stood. He didn't nod or say anything. He merely turned around with the saddest, most hateful look of acceptance, and walked to the edge of the cage. It took only a moment to lift it over his head, and then he was walking out of the door. His step didn't falter, didn't hesitate or slow. He didn't stop to say one last word at the door.

He was just gone.

There was no reason for her to rise from her corner, and so she didn't. She sat there, not fighting the weeping, not fighting the tears, letting them flow as if her pain would flow right out with them. As if she could forget. As if she could wake up and it would all be nothing more than a nightmare. But it wasn't, and he was gone, and she was all alone again, all alone like she had always been, all alone for once because someone—someone she had trusted, someone she _knew _would always be _there _for her—thought that leaving her alone would make her happy.

All of a sudden, her world came crashing to a pinpoint, a trickle of light that could hardly be considered a beacon in the dark, at all. There was nothing left; it was as if she had simply stopped living. It startled her, frightened her out of her wits; where was her desire to do something? She searched her mind, searched anything through the tears and the pain. Thinking of the things she liked to do changed nothing; baseball, to her horror, didn't interest her; thinking of Nymeria only brought a shy twinge of comfort; considering her family at all felt... meaningless. Just like everything else. It was as if someone had reached out, plucked her soul from her body, and snuffed it out in a fist. Leaving her heart torn beyond repair, rent into a million billion pieces. There was nothing, no motivation to move, no reason to get up and do _anything_.

And then she realized she couldn't let Gendry get away. She would do anything, badger him, scream at him, whisper to him, threaten him, hit him, knock him out, cling to him and refuse to let go, anything, _anything_ at all to convince him that she didn't need money, or baseball, or his support or anything else as long as she had him. She needed him. She needed him _now_. She should never have told him to go. She should always have told him, above all else, that all she needed was for him to _stay_.

She launched herself to her feet, slipping and falling onto her hands and knees, lurching back up without a thought, scrambling towards the door and whipping through it without a second thought except, _Gendry, Gendry_.

Like a fastball she went flying through the empty clubhouse, bursting onto the concourse with the only intent in her mind being to stop him, _stop him _before it was too late. Had the concourse been occupied at all, she would have been throwing bodies left and right, wildly aside, destroying anything that stood between her and Gendry. But it was empty, empty, empty like her heart and her mind, empty except for the all-consuming need to catch up to him, to apologize, to demand that he stay, to accept nothing less.

She hit the gate like a cannonball, bursting through it, not noticing the icy chill that sank into her skin as she tore off into the rainstorm, eyes wildly flashing around, begging, praying for him to still be in sight, for there to be some chance that she could tackle him and show him who was boss, who he belonged to.

It was difficult to see in the storm, but anxiety boosted her blood, insisted that she make out something in the storm. She could see nothing in the direction of the parking lot, empty of cars and motorcycles alike. The parking ramp was mostly dark, but that was the most likely place he would park his motorcycle, especially considering the rain. If she was lucky, maybe he would hesitate to ride off into the storm, maybe try to wait it out, as she had thought about doing in the car. With that in mind, she tore across the street, forgetting completely to check for traffic, and rushed into the thing.

The downpour left her drenched to the bone and freezing as she ran under the overhang, but she didn't notice or care. She sprinted up the first level, eyes shooting around wildly, paying attention to any miniscule sign of him. When she came up short, she ran up to the second level, and then the third, and then the fourth, finally stumbling back out into the rain of the roof, gasping for breath but refusing to give up, refusing to give in to the horrible grief. She ran back down the opposite side of the ramps, listening for the revving of an engine, peering carefully for any sign of black hair or blue eyes or a sturdy body. She saw nothing, even as she staggered back into the storm on the streets of Winterfell, nearly wailing in despair. It was impossible to tell what was rain and what was tears, but there were plenty of both. What there wasn't plenty of was Gendry.

Refusing to accept the truth, she darted back across the street, thinking perhaps he had taken a walk to soothe his frayed and heartbroken emotions... in the pouring rain. Looking up at the Great Keep, she tried to decide whether to go right or left; if she chose wrong, she might never find him. But delaying a decision was wasting time, time where he might be getting farther away. With a growl and a moan, she tore off left, jogging the perimeter of the stadium, glancing between the pillars, through the gates, around the surrounding streets, praying for any sign. She rounded the entire thing and found nothing, but instead of despairing she swung around and charged off right, not quite sure why she thought she could find but not willing to give up. When that second revolution was complete, and her step faltered where she had first entered the stadium, across from the parking, she fell straight to the pavement and gave up.

Sitting in a puddle, she wept openly, not caring who saw, not caring who cared, because Gendry was gone and now she knew that there was nothing she would be able to say that would change his mind, that would change the pain in his ways as he did as she bade and left her, change the way he looked at her as he more or less confessed to loving her. There were no words to describe her pain. Arya wasn't weak, had never been weak, detested crying, detested people who cried. Yet she could stymie her tears, couldn't hate herself enough to climb back to her feet and walk away herself. He had weakened her, he had broken her. She hated him, she hated herself. She loved him. She hated herself.

How she found herself back in her car, the rain having washed away the last of her tears, seeing the lights illumine a watery Stark Manor before her, she couldn't have said. It was a blank in her memory, erased by the cascade of rain on her windshield, finally opening back up to thought as she pulled into the garage, slamming on the brakes mere feet from the wall. She stumbled out of the car, startled by the jarring pain of every step, shocked that she was so wet, horrified that she didn't care.

Into the house she went, dropping her keys next to her shoes as she walked herself out of them. There was Catelyn; she said hi. Arya barely noticed; her thoughts yanked themselves from oblivion to concrete in an instant, turning her eyes up the staircase. Completely ignoring her mother—not by desire—she felt her eyebrows crease, her shoulders set, her fists curl and her legs propel her towards the stairs. One foot behind the next, taking them three at a time. She thought perhaps her fury was propelling her towards her bedroom, but they were not; they didn't pause at the second floor of the Manor, only enough to stride the landing between wells and mount the second set of stairs, towards the third floor, towards the architect of her despair.

Arya _always _knocked before entering her father's study. Today, tonight, with the storm of her heartbreak raging outside and a fury colder than space and hotter than hate burning in her heart, she nearly kicked the damn door down, pounding into it with her entire body to slam it open as she charged in.

Ned Stark looked up from his desk as she entered, half-shooting to his feet from where he was slumped with his chin in hand before seeing it was her and deflating. His simpleton appearance beneath the single bulb lighting the room, a t-shirt he had no doubt changed into after returning from the stadium, angered her, made her want to throw something at someone. It all wasn't fair; he sat there casually, comfortably, as if he hadn't just ruined her life.

Emotion powered her voice, laced with bitterness and anguish. A clap of thunder broke through the quiet as she opened her mouth. "How could you do this to me?! How could you?"

He watched her, his face completely blank, his body rigid. A soft breath slipped through his lips, and he nodded stiffly. "He did it, then."

Her mind turned murderous. Inside of her chest, something screamed, cried out, scratched and tore and tried to escape. "You... you... you son _of a bitch_!"

Ned Stark jumped, and she felt the barest glint of satisfaction. She had never—_never_—sworn at her father before. It was something she had prided herself on, promised herself she wouldn't do. She would always make sure he knew that she respected him, that she loved him, that nothing could ever come between them. But that was before.

"Arya..." he breathed, his voice a whisper, his eyes crinkling in surprise and disapproval.

"How could you?" she repeated. "What have you done? Do you even understand what that was? Did you even think about what you were doing, what it would do to me?"

"Arya," he said again, his stern voice that usually would have demanded obedience bouncing off of her skull as though it was a murmur. "You have no right to speak to me like that."

She cracked a guffaw, devoid of humor. "That's a fucking _joke_. You are..." She stopped, seizing her hair in two hands, shaking her head at him as she felt tears brim once again in her eyes. She was so tired of crying... so freaking tired... "What is wrong with you? Why did you do it? Do you just hate him? Do you just hate the thought of me actually being happy so much that you had to ruin it?"

"Ned?"

Arya whirled around, towards the door, where Catelyn stood, peeking her head into the room. Her mother looked worried, concerned, perplexed, and a little wary, her eyes dancing between Arya and her husband uncertainly.

Before Arya could snap something at her mother, some other accusation, some backhand about what Ned Stark had done, he spoke from behind her, causing her to whirl back to him. "I'll handle this. Please close the door."

She listened as her mother acquiesced, murmuring a soft confirmation before slipping out with the soft click of the latch. Arya glared at her father, trying to choose the next words to launch at him. In her hesitance, he lowered the hand he had raised to soothe Catelyn and set his face to address her. "You are clearly upset, and I understand. I didn't want you to get hurt and it hurts _me _very much to see that you are. But I had my reasons for doing what I did. And I don't regret them."

"You took him away from me!" she bellowed at him. She didn't care who heard her. Let the world know what her own father had taken away from her. "You betrayed me! You used his own doubts against him! You made him think that he could _hurt _me, that he wasn't _good enough _for me!"

"He's not," Ned murmured, eyes now blazing with quiet rage. "And he could hurt you. Very easily."

"You obviously know nothing about him," she retorted. "He could as sooner raise a hand against me as cut his arm off. His right fucking arm. You... You fucking kept it away from him that he had a motherfucking tear in his elbow! What the hell is wrong with you? Who are you? You're not my father! My father is a good man! He doesn't hide secrets from people or conspire to make his daughter unhappy!"

"I did what I did!" her father growled, dangerously close to raising his voice. "I did it to protect. First him, and then you. I did it so I could give him his shot, so I could get him out of the horrors he lived in. And he succeeded. He made it. I'm not proud of the decision, but no one can deny that it worked out."

"And me?" she demanded. Tears slipped from her eyes. "Taking everything away from me! Who were you protecting there?"

His eyes narrowed as lightning flashed outside. "I didn't take everything from you. I convinced him that it would be better for both you and him if you ended what you had together. I'm not proud of that one, either, Arya, but I am sure it is what is in everyone's best interest."

"Why the hell do you think that? Look, Dad, you have _no _idea what was between me and Gendry. I don't know what you think you know or how you fucking knew about us in the first place, but whatever you have in your head about him and his intentions is _wrong_. And whatever you think I feel for him, I can guarantee you that he means a lot more to me than I ever thought possible. More than baseball, Dad. More than fucking _baseball_, and baseball is my _life_!"

Her father watched her hesitantly, but when he spoke it was with no less confidence or conviction. "If this is all well and true, and you both actually cared about each other and there was nothing wrong with what there was, then why exactly did you feel a need to keep the two of you a secret from me? Tell me that, Arya. I want to know."

She scoffed. "Because we were afraid of exactly what you did! Dad, we were serious, we were _really _freaking serious."

"How can you know what serious is? You've never had a real relationship before."

"Okay, just fucking stop," she demanded, shaking her head and biting her lip to contain her anger. "Do not tell me I don't know what serious is. I know what I had with Gendry was serious and that I liked where it was going and that now... now..." _I'm lost. I'm nothing. Everything has been taken from me_. She fought a sob, succeeded only in partially stifling it, and glared at her father with more anger than she'd ever held for one person before in her life. "We were afraid you would tear us apart, as unlikely as it sounded, and you freaking did, Dad, you freaking did! And now I'm lost and scared and I don't know what to do because I feel like I'm dying without him! Do you have any idea at all what you've done to me?"

Ned Stark hesitated, opening his mouth to say something and holding himself back for a moment while he clearly composed himself. "Arya, I know you're upset, and I realize you're feeling a lot of pain right now. But believe me when I say that it's for the best."

"How the hell can I believe that?" she cried, running her fingers through her hair, gripping it, nearly tearing it off of her head. "No, I don't. I don't believe that at all."

Her father glared at her, and at length turned his back to stride away. He stopped before the study window, staring out as lightning struck in the distance and water pelted the glass. For several moments he glared out into the rainy night with indecision, finally running his fingers tiredly over his face and rubbing at his eyes. Turning back, he strode to the sofa that lined the wall next to his desk and sat down, looking up at her as he did so.

"Come here, Arya," he murmured, patting the seat beside him.

"No," she retorted. She would not give in. Not now.

He sighed. "Arya. I'm sorry. Please sit down. I'm going to tell you everything. I'm going to tell you the truth. The whole truth. It's time."

"What truth could you tell me," Arya hissed, furiously wiping a tear away, "that could justify this to me?"

"Maybe nothing," her father replied somberly. When he glanced up at her, all the determination and fury had left his gaze. Now, there was something far more natural, far less aged in their place; unbridled sorrow and regret. "But it's the only thing I know that can possibly show you what I believe."

She stared at her father for several moments as lightning crackled, illuminating the dim room briefly in a sultry glow. _It's a trap. It's a trick. He's lying to me. He's just going to spread some lie about Gendry, something he thinks will make me forget this pain. But I won't let him. I won't forget, I won't give up. He can't make me._

The thoughts rushed through her mind, but even as they did, she found her bare feet sliding quietly across the carpet of his office. Her father watched her morbidly as she lowered herself cautiously down on the cushions beside him, tucking her feet underneath her and wrapping her arms around her knees protectively as she faced him, aware of the tear streaks marring her pale flesh and how red her eyes must have been even in the low light. And of the hollow hole in her chest.

He waited for a moment after she sat, leaning forward on his knees and looking away. His fingers meshed, he took a deep breath, and finally her father opened his mouth and began. "You know the story of my brother Brandon. He made the quick trip to the majors and then tore the labrum in his shoulder. Career over. He was pitching for the Eyrie in those days, et cetera. That was when I was offered my first contract right out of the University of Winterfell, because he vouched for me when he went on the disabled list. The team took pity on him because they knew he was likely finished, so they signed me just to appease him."

Arya listened without comment, wondering why she was paying attention, at all. She had heard this story before, the four or five times Ned had told his family himself and the dozens of others where she'd read about it or seen it on pitching documentaries praising Ned Stark's rise to fame. There was no reason she could fathom why he would tell her again, what it could possibly have to do with Gendry and her broken heart, but she was out of tears and too exhausted to speak up and ask him the reason why. Instead, she let him continue wordlessly.

"I started at class A, threw three complete games and never gave up a hit. They moved me straight up to triple-A because they were in a playoff race and I still excelled. Then, while your uncle Brandon was having surgery back in Winterfell and we were praying he may still have a chance at pitching again, I got called up to Bigs in the Eyrie and was thrown right into the starting rotation. That's all history. We made it to the playoffs, we won, all of that."

Her father paused for a moment, his eyes going distant with the power of ancient memory. "That was when I met a young rookie slugger for the Eyrie named Robert Baratheon. He was loud, trash-talking, fun-loving, hard-hitting and when I was twenty-two I loved it. He was exactly the type of person I wanted to be around right then and we stuck together like glue. With me in the rotation and him cleaning up in the lineup we just started winning games left and right. The division was being torn up—we were gaining three or four games on the Monarchs per week, closing in right at the end of playoff time. That was when King's Landing was still in the Eyrie's division, along with Storm's End."

Ned Stark shivered next to her and ran his fingers through his hair. "You've heard of Rhaegar Targaryen. He was the ace of the Monarchs at that time. Wicked, brutal pitcher. I studied him throughout college. He was one of Brandon's rivals, and any chance I got I watched him pitch. I truly believe he was the only reason the Monarchs didn't completely collapse when we started coming back on them that year. The rest of the team was folding, but Rhaegar was still fighting on hard. He just refused to give up, and he pulled out the most unlikely winning streak at the end of the year to beat us out for the division title. Robert was furious; he didn't want the wild card, but we went into the playoffs with a chip on our shoulder because of it.

"But that's not everything you need about Rhaegar. My sister, Lyanna, your aunt, had gone down to King's Landing that summer to begin college—the same as you did this past year. We didn't hear much of her that year. She called, of course, but with Brandon being injured and me getting the contract and Benjen getting drafted out of his sophomore year of college by the Night Watch she wasn't… she wasn't exactly the Stark that demanded the most attention. In any case, she was sort of quiet all that year, other than meeting up with me a few times when we were in King's Landing for a series.

"That's when Robert noticed her."

Her father stood, and paced away from the sofa, wringing his hands together and shaking his head. Arya wasn't surprised to see her father react as so, even to a story of his own telling; she hardly ever heard him mention his older brother, and anything she knew about her aunt was mostly what she had read on the internet, decades-dead articles about her tragic demise in the horrific car accident. The effort to talk about his sister clearly taking its toll, her father treaded back and forth across the carpet a few times and took several deep breaths, finally calming himself enough to continue. Arya almost pitied him.

"Robert claimed it was love at first sight. She had other thoughts about it. I was overjoyed for the prospect—my best friend being with my sister, what better thing could there be?—and I thought that they were perfect for each other. I thought she would come around and fall in love with him and he'd marry her and take her back to the Eyrie with him and join the houses of Baratheon and Stark for the best."

Ned Stark stopped pacing, and turned to face her where she was sitting, gazing up at him. "The shock was when Robert and I discovered that she was with Rhaegar Targaryen, the best pitcher of our archrival, without telling us. The _married_ Rhaegar Targaryne." Her father shuffled his feet uncomfortably, but went on. "Robert was furious. He basically tracked Rhaegar down and initiated a blood feud. If Lyanna hadn't intervened…" He shivered again. "I don't know. It was a dark picture after that. Fall was beginning, the playoffs were coming, Robert was hitting the ball harder than ever in his rage and even I felt a little betrayed. Needless to say, even with us playing our best ball of the year we knew that we would face the Monarchs before the World Series, when the unstoppable force of youth met the immovable object of tradition. We knew that we couldn't let Rhaegar win… not after he'd taken my sister away.

"The tabloids got a hold of the story and made a big scandal out of the whole thing," Ned recalled, laughing bitterly. "It put a spin on the baseball playoffs so much that even nagging housewives decided to tune in to games that year. Rhaegar and Robert were at each other's throats in the media, in their loud and not-very-civilized battle for Lyanna. It was like Rhaegar didn't even care about his wife, in that regard. He was completely infatuated with Lyanna. She disappeared from the spotlight, having gone back to Winterfell to hide once she was discovered in the summer, and no one could find her to take her comment on the situation. I looked for her to try and protect her, but even Brandon and I had no idea what had happened. Meanwhile, we destroyed the Watch in the first round and the Monarchs pretty well obliterated Highgarden. That was the highlight of the championship series: Robert versus Rhaegar… as if whoever won the series would also win Lyanna. I was starting to worry about Robert, but to me it was still about baseball, not my sister, and so I didn't say anything.

"The first two games of the Championship Series were played in King's Landing. We split. Rhaegar took the win in the first game, struck Robert out three times. He broke his bat on the inside of the dugout each time, and Jon Arryn threatened to bench him if he didn't calm down. He went into another fit, and hit two home runs in the second game, which I threw and won. Back in the Eyrie, we won games three and four while Rhaegar sat the bench waiting for his next start. The winds were in our favor. We could taste victory, taste the World Series, and Robert also seemed to believe that if he could just beat Rhaegar Lyanna would choose him instead."

Her father stopped talking. She had let her eyes drift to the window, mesmerized by the storm as his story invigorated her. Never had she heard this version of the story that had begun her father's career. Never had she made any connection between the sequences of events that her father was telling her about right now. She knew all of the outcomes, but even hearing them told as he was doing so had her face wide with dismay and surprise, despite herself. After several moments of silence, she looked up, and found her father standing perfectly still in the quiet. His arms were shaking and his face was turned away from her. When he finally spoke again, his voice was quavering more than his arms.

"Rhaegar pitched game five against me. The coach put me in on four days' rest because he thought I had the best chance of beating Rhaegar and he wanted that series in as few games as possible. We dueled back and forth all day, striking out hitters, getting out of jams, making quality pitches and hitting spots wherever we had to. There must've only been four hits that whole game, we were so on fire. I remember walking back to the dugout after the seventh and thinking that eventually one of us had to mess up. Eventually one of us would make a mistake that cost us that game."

His words slowed. Every sentence seemed to take a year to tell. "In the bottom of the ninth Robert stepped up to the plate against Rhaegar. After the third pitch of the at-bat Rhaegar said something to him. I don't know what it was—nobody ever has—but Robert almost charged the mound then and there. The next pitch was a fastball, belt high…

"Robert slammed it back up the middle. It hit Rhaegar square in forehead."

Arya knew what had happened. She had read about it, heard it, seen it, been made subject to the tragic moment when all of the King's Landing Monarchs' reign of terror on the league had ended her entire life, all the way up until Robert Baratheon surprised the world by purchasing his old nemesis' team. _Targaryen, in critical condition after line drive. Targaryen passed away in the night after horrific injury. Monarchs lose series in 5; lose much more than a game._

"He died in the hospital the next week," Ned whispered. His voice was firm once again. "We had already gone on to the World Series, a sour taste in everyone's mouth. Probably even Robert's. I had trouble focusing. I only went five innings in game one, and even though we won it didn't feel… right… And then…" He hesitated. "That was the only game of that Series that I threw…"

Her father swallowed and cleared his throat. At that moment—having absolutely no idea how it occurred—Arya knew exactly what he was going to say; her mouth fell open preemptively in shock. "Lyanna took Brandon's car, unbeknownst to anyone in our family, and tried to drive south from Winterfell to King's Landing to see Rhaegar in the hospital. On the night of game two of the World Series, the day before Rhaegar died, it was storming outside. Your aunt lost control of the vehicle on the highway and went off-road…"

Ned Stark choked up and stopped, his massive shoulders trembling. Arya stared at him, feeling tears form in her own eyes. This was something she had never heard before. This was something that her father had never ever shared with his children. "You…" she tried to say, caught up short by her trembling lip. "You never… I never knew how Aunt Lyanna died…"

"She was a lot like you," he replied. His voice wasn't there; he wasn't talking to her; he was someplace else. The tears were flowing into his beard freely, catching and hanging from the stubbly rods of hair. "She was small and fiery and had the steel of a wolf inside of her. She would never shut up when it was good for her and always tried to tag along with me and Brandon. I tried to protect her… I tried _so hard _to protect her…"

Arya didn't know what to say. A part of her wanted to go to her father and comfort him. A part of her was shocked and hurt at what he had kept from her for her entire life about her family, about his sister. Yet another part of her hadn't killed the fury of several minutes previously, the angry, agonizing heartbreak that she still blamed on him. In the moment, though, as silence gripped his study and the storm raged outside and nothing seemed to exist except for her father and his rare tears, she couldn't bring herself to move or think in any way. The moment stretched into a minute, and the minute into several, and still she couldn't bring herself to do anything. All her body let her do was stare at her father as he cried out his sorrow and tried desperately to bring himself back under control.

The world quieted again. Her father's sobs receded. The room was still, Arya not daring to say a word. If not for lightning flashes and faraway crashes of thunder, the study would have been as still as a crypt.

Ned Stark cleared his throat again, at length. "When I got to the hospital, the nurse told me… she said…" He sighed heavily, and wiped his face before turning to face his daughter. "She told me that Lyanna was dying, and that she was pregnant."

Arya was too exhausted to be any more shocked, and yet surprise still coiled in her stomach. Weakly, she mumbled, "What?"

"It was Rhaegar's," Ned replied, and Arya shuddered as new tears sprung to her eyes. "No one had known. Not our father. Not Brandon. Not me. She had been gone the entire summer, hiding away in her home, refusing to meet me, refusing to address the tabloid reporters, everything. It was a month before her term, but she was dying, they said…

"I was the only Stark there. Mother had already passed. Brandon and Father had yet to fly down. Benjen wasn't even notified until the next day. No one else knew about the child. I paced outside the operating room from midnight until dawn, and when the nurse came out…" He stopped, closed his eyes, clearly having to force the words out of his mouth one-by-one. "The nurse came out of surgery and told me they'd saved the baby. A boy. Lyanna was barely clinging to life, and she wasn't going to make it. They rushed me in to see her."

Her father strode over to the window, leaning against the sill and staring out at the rain. The illumination of the storm allowed her to see the stern look of agony on his face. "I'll always remember that day. I stumbled into the operating room, shocked out of my mind. Twelve hours before, I had been at the ballpark, watching the Eagles win game two. Now, my sister was dying, I had a nephew no one had even known existed, and baseball felt like the farthest thing from reality. She was lying in the bed, attached to machines even though it was too late, her hair wet and her face completely exhausted. The baby was in her arms—the little treasure she'd sacrificed her own life to bring into the world. The room they'd put her in had a window right behind her bed, and the sun was shining down upon her. You'd never have thought she was dying, from that image. I thought she was immortal, invincible. I thought that my little wolf sister would never die.

"She opened her eyes when I walked in, and whispered my name. I went to her bedside and took her hand, and she told me to look at her son. He had Rhaegar's fire in his eyes, she said, but it was only her eyes I saw in the little boy. He was her embodiment; he had the blood of a Stark in his veins, plain as day even when he was a baby. She whispered to me… she knew she was dying, knew what the tabloids had said, knew the scandal and the legal war that would happen if the Targaryens ever found out that Rhaegar had a son. Then, with some of her last strength, she pulled me down to her and pressed the baby into my arms, and made me promise to take it as my own, and to claim it as my own, and to never let anyone know that Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark had ever birthed a child. I had nothing left to do. I had no other choice to make. Her life was slipping; her grip was weakening. I looked my sister in the eyes in her last moments…"

Her father turned his head, staring her straight, grey Stark eye to grey Stark eye. "And I promised her. The child started crying as she died."

"Jon."

The word escaped her lips as a whisper, but it might as well have been a shout. She felt her heart stop, her breath leave her chest as though slammed out by slamming in a car. Her legs trembled beneath her, her jaw quivered, her head spun and heaved under the blood rush and she felt like she was going to explode.

She glared back up at her father, and did. "_Why didn't you ever tell me_? _Why have you lied to me this whole time_?"

Her father turned his gaze away. "I gave my word to my dying sister. I would not break it but to those who would treasure the truth as though it was their own secret, hiding it behind their very lives to protect it."

"Who else knew?" Arya demanded, leaping to her feet, and squaring off towards her father. Her fists were balled at her sides; she knew her eyes were on fire. "Who else have you told?"

"Your mother, of course," Ned Stark answered. "She was the only one who knew for a very long time. Afterwards, when she flew down for the funeral, pregnant with Robb, I showed her the boy, and I told her the entire story up front. The hospital never released the information to the public, obviously, so I was the only one who knew the whole truth, and then her. She was not happy. In fact, it took me almost a week to convince her that it was for the best."

"That it was _for the best_?" Arya screeched, mildly taken aback that she was defending her mother. "You convinced your _wife_ to lie for you for her entire life! You forced my mother to tell people she _cared about_ that her husband had fathered a child through an adulterous affair and yet she took you _back_! Do you have _any idea_ how much shit she has taken for you? Do you how many people have told her to _leave you_ for that?"

"But she didn't," her father breathed, in a small voice. He did not rise to Arya's anger. She wasn't sure if he had the energy in him to do it, anyway. "She didn't, because she knew what our families had at stake, and she did it because she is a Stark like the rest of us. I love your mother. I loved her then, and I love her more now for being as strong as she is, for having weathered what she has, for me and our family."

She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming about how unfair it was to her, to their family, how furious she was with him or how betrayed she felt, for Jon and Gendry and Rhaegar and everyone and how much she wanted to hate him at that moment. "Does Jon know?"

Arya wasn't sure whether to be relieved or horrified when Ned nodded. "I told him when he was drafted. It was his right. I'd raised him his whole life as my son… he _is _my son… but he deserved the whole truth, as well. I knew that from the day he was born, but I had to choose the right time to tell him. I think I did. He took it well, and I left it up to him whether or not to reveal it to the rest of you. He chose not to."

"Mom always treated him badly," Arya said. "Even though she knew the truth."

Ned shrugged, not without a grimace. "Your mother had to deal with many things. She did not treat Jon poorly. She was just… obviously less inclined to treat him as one of her own, when she took as much punishment and shame for something that was not true as she did, being forced to keep her mouth shut when others called her a coward and a fool." Arya opened her mouth to continue her argument, but her father shook her head and swiped away her words. "She could have left me, Arya. She could have left me anytime, knowing what I was doing, knowing what I had to do, knowing what it would do for her. She could have left me that first day, and you and Sansa and Bran and Rickon would never have been born. But she stayed. I can never tell her how much I love her for that."

She was too tired to keep fighting. They lapsed again into a silence, Arya still trying to wrap her mind around everything her father had just told her. She put her head into her hands, feeling like crying even though there were probably no more tears in the world for any Stark after the night she and her father had had.

Finally, an eternity later, her own life returned to her, the own predicament that had brought her to his study that night rushing back into her mind. _Gendry striding out of the room—Gendry hollering how he wasn't enough for her—Gendry grinning down at her as the earliest shimmers of sun peaked through the curtains and danced in his eyes…_

"Why did you tell me this?" she whispered, trying to muster her former fury. Her father turned to her, his eyes uncomprehending. "What does this have to do with me losing Gendry? Why have you taken him from me?"

She wasn't positive he was going to respond. They were both silent for a long moment after she spoke, but finally his voice split the empty room. "Brandon slipped into a depression after Lyanna's death. Three months afterward, he overdosed on painkillers for his shoulder. He wasn't even found for two days, and I had been so caught up in caring for two newborn sons I realized I'd neglected my brother when he needed me the most. It stemmed back to Lyanna, which stemmed back to Rhaegar, which stemmed…" He sighed. "…back to Robert."

"Robert…"

"Yes, to Robert," Ned said. He turned back to his window and stared out at lightning. "I know—I mean, there is almost no way Robert could have meant to hit that ball as he did, could have meant to hurt Rhaegar as he did… but from that moment everything in my life started to come undone. I didn't even travel back to the Eyrie once after that. I had my things packed up and shipped without me; I didn't get my World Series ring until two years later when I went back with the Direwolves for a series.

"I knew it wasn't really Robert's fault… I know it wasn't really his fault. But I couldn't speak to him for months after the accident. I ran away. I fled home. With a wife and two boys to care for, I talked to the closest team to home, the Direwolves, and I immediately signed a long-term contract. Robert—as I later discovered—dropped into his own depression, mourning for Lyanna and cursing Rhaegar, even after it was his own bat that had killed him. His involved a lot of alcohol and women, and even though he tried to give a semblance of normalcy by marrying Cersei Lannister he was as lost as I. He signed with Storm's End, his own hometown team, and lit it up for years in his anger, but I didn't go to see him... for a long time. We were friends… we just… I just… I couldn't look at him for a long time without remembering what had happened to my sister because of him."

He turned back to her, and from the look in his eyes she knew that whatever he was saying and going to say was extremely painful to get out, and that he was doing it anyway. He believed it, she knew, just as he'd told her he did. At the same time, she knew that whatever he wanted to say was going to be something that she could never agree with.

"Gendry isn't Robert," her father whispered. "You're not Lyanna. But he's Robert's son, and you are as much a Stark as Lyanna ever was, with the same fire and the same anger and the same strength. He is as stubborn and furious as Robert ever was, if considerably more tame, I admit. But he is the man's spitting image. The eyes. The face. When I look at you, Arya, and I think of him with you… all I see is what was. All I see is what could be. Once upon a time, a Baratheon man pined after a Stark woman, and when that happened a very large part of my life was torn away from me. My family was destroyed."

"Gendry's not a Baratheon!" she cried. "His name is Waters! He's not Robert, he's not Robert's son! Robert is nothing to him, he didn't even know he had a father who was alive for all of his life."

Her father listened, but his head was downcast, his eyes equally as dark. His decision had already been made. Tears prickled anew in her eyes as he shook his head. "If you're with him, you will only know pain. What's happened before will happen again."

"You can't know that!" she screamed at him, begging her father, pleading with him, nearly getting onto her knees to make her see that she cared about nothing but Gendry. That she couldn't live without him. That she would rather die than watch him walk away from her again.

"But I do," her father whispered, and her insides shriveled painfully into nothing. "I know as sure as winter is coming that, whether he means to or not, Gendry will, in the end, bring you harm."

_He won't. He would never. He… he _loves _me…_

She glared up at her father. "You're wrong."

The grey Stark eyes that glared back at her steeled themselves with fury. "I say what I do to protect you, and I will not allow it. I will not let him, or anyone, harm my daughter. I'm sorry, Arya, but it's what's best for you."

"You can't stop us," Arya declared stubbornly, wobbling onto her feet and standing as tall as she could, facing off Ned Stark. "You can't keep us from being together."

_But he's already gone._

Rage flashed behind his eyes, but his mask of composure didn't break. "Perhaps not. But he will be off my team so quickly he won't have time to reconsider, and when he doesn't have the Direwolves he won't have anyone. No one will sign him with his elbow, and he knows that. He won't be willing to walk down that road."

Her father turned away and strode heavily behind his desk, each step seeming to take an eon. "I like him as much as anyone else, Arya, and I don't want to hurt you, but you forced me into this and I did not hesitate. When Baratheons and Starks mix... only pain results."

"What about Sansa and Joffrey?" she screamed. "What about them? You didn't tear _them _apart, not even when you knew Sansa was unhappy."

Ned Stark stiffened. "Perhaps I should have. Perhaps I failed in my duties as a father. I won't this time."

"No!" She turned and brought both of her fists down on the sofa. "You didn't do it because Joffrey doesn't _look _like Robert, and Sansa doesn't _look _like Aunt Lyanna, and they don't _remind_ you of them! You just tore apart my life because you think that the past will repeat itself, because you're caught up in superstitions because you can't let go of the past and see that I'm _happy_! I was freaking _happy_, Dad!"

He flinched, staring at her as if she'd slapped him. After a long moment of hesitation, he turned his face downward, pulling his chair out from his desk and setting himself heavily in it. He reached out to straighten a few things on his desk while clearing his throat. "I will keep you from harm. I will protect you as I couldn't my sister. If it makes you hate me, so be it. I will live with the consequences."

Arya stood, horrified, horrorstruck, shaking her head as if the action would make the situation unreal, would make her wake up and have a fresh hack at the day. "If you do this, if you don't back down from this... I will _never _forgive you, Dad. Never."

Her father sighed and closed his eyes, but when he opened them to look at her, there was nothing but certainty in them. "I will live with the consequences."

For a long moment, Arya stared at him, willing him to be gone, willing everything and everyone to be gone except for Gendry, wishing she had said something else, wishing she was someone else, in another place, in another time, anywhere but where she was, with her father, and Robert, and Lyanna, and Rhaegar Targaryen. Tears welled in her eyes and there was nothing she could do to stop them. They were the remnant debris of her heart finding a futile escape from her body, a piece of her that she could not get away from no matter how hard she tried.

She turned around and ran from the room, weeping already.

On the stairwell, she nearly ran over Sansa and Catelyn, who both jumped and gasped as she nearly barreled them over in her haste to get away, to get away from everything. She ground to a halt a few steps below them, whirling and glaring at her sister, brandishing her tears and her face for all the world to see, actually reveling in the look of concern and surprise that crossed both of the women's faces.

"You told him, didn't you?" she spat at Sansa bitterly. Her voice rose in anger. "You couldn't stand to see me happy when you've been miserable, and you fucking told him! You ruined everything!"

"Arya..."

Before Sansa could get another word in, Arya whipped the other way and scrambled down the stairs, not wanting to hear it, not wanting to listen to anything, not wanting to pretend the raindrops cascading down on the Manor without signs of stopping weren't her tears, not wanting to act like she could wake up in the morning and everything would be all right, not wanting to act like Gendry wasn't gone, gone, gone. Gone forever.

Even when her body hit the bed, and her face buried itself in the pillow, she was still running. Running far, far away.


	21. Chapter 20

**Yeah. This chapter is awful.**

**20**

And that was July.

The trade deadline came and went, and the owner of the team made no more transactions. Their roster was more than likely in it for the long haul, bound to each other as they mounted the hill and charged against a dozen competitors at a dead sprint. Gendry threw only once over the end of the month, converting a save around a hit and a walk, a shakier performance than he was used to. Pretending that he wasn't anything but normal over the tremulous days following the all-star break, Gendry buried himself in workouts and pitching sessions, and that was enough.

It didn't last very long.

By the first day of August, everyone in the clubhouse seemed to have gained wind of what had happened. He had expected backlash, shock and distress, maybe a crude joke delivered at an inappropriate time. What he had not seen coming was... silence. Or _comfort_. Conversations finished when he walked into the room; heads swiveled in his direction and offered sympathetic grins. There was no ugly glare as if they thought he had taken advantage of a woman by flaunting his profession and role, the reaction he completely anticipated receiving; it was a rational thought process, after all, considering that he had kept it from them and had earned the ire of their mutual boss from the action. Instead of antagonizing him, the men gave him distance. Instead of provoking him, they seemed to realize his tenuous emotional state. It left Gendry wondering exactly how much they knew of what he had gone through in just one night. Dreading how much they knew.

One of the most curious reactions of all was Robb. For a week Gendry thought that his roommate had absolutely no knowledge of what had passed between him and the man's sister, no idea of the heartbreak and the emotion. Robb treated him no differently, acted exactly the same as he always had before, with a quick smile, a sharp tongue, and a friendly presence. For all Gendry could tell, the man was still completely oblivious. Then, on a Sunday morning in Greywater, Robb had room service at the door before Gendry even woke up, and gave a soft murmur saying he was sorry how things had turned out. And that was that; the only indication Robb gave that he knew, but Gendry didn't have a single doubt that his roommate and team captain had any less than a complete understanding of what had happened.

Edric was the next straw that made Gendry wonder truly how pitiful he was, that his teammates—people who he himself thought should think he had been up to something suspicious and unnecessary and selfish—chose to give him berth and lift him up with a comment rather than toss him under the bus for ruining certain locker room vibes and spit at him.

The center fielder whom Gendry found hard to dislike sat down on the bench next to the reliever as he was tugging his sweaty undershirt off after a late night loss, the first in seven games. Gendry hadn't pitched, Edric had struck out twice, yet it was the smaller of the two who reached out to the other with a soothing, brotherly pat of the shoulder.

"Chin up, friend," Edric told him, shrugging. "If you ever need someone to talk to, you just got to say the word and I'm there."

It was something Gendry couldn't understand. The man was a teammate only by way of a midseason trade that actually spelled the completion of Gendry's settling in to Winterfell. They were almost polar opposites, Edric being open and happy while Gendry was quiet and somber. What was more, Gendry had once thought that Edric might have even been interested in... _her_... himself.

All of it conglomerated couldn't keep Gendry from voicing his thoughts. "Why?"

Edric shrugged. "No one should go through difficult times on their own. Least of all you, I'm thinking."

Gendry didn't know what he meant by it, but did not press the question, and Edric moved along to leave his words bouncing around Gendry's head. Gendry stared after him, wondering if what he had said was true. Everything else that had happened to Gendry in his life had been dealt with by no one but him and he realized that he hadn't expected it to change just because of a change in setting. It wasn't something he was used to, going to someone and talking just for the sake of talking. Not people who weren't the person he could never have again. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. All he wanted was to forget. Which he didn't think he ever could.

He avoided Ned Stark like the plague. When the owner and general manager made his occasional entrance to the room, Gendry dropped everything he was doing and walked out, often conspicuously. He did not care who noticed, as long as he was gone, which was a good thing, seeing as nearly everyone noticed every time he did it. Ned Stark's eyes followed him the entire way from the room, as well, he imagined, though he didn't nearly have the determination of the willingness to turn around and glare back himself in order to confirm it. Luckily for the both of them, Ned Stark never tried to pursue or speak with him, which was just as well, because Gendry would probably have said something uncouth that would spell trouble for everyone present and not have cared in the slightest.

Sleeping wasn't going well for him, either. Sometimes he would toss and turn for hours and finally give away, only to slip away to vague, gray dreams that unsettled him when he awoke. Sometimes he would fall asleep instantly, thankfully, only to rise to a wakeful sleeping state a few hours later, where images of her body next to his tortured him, leaving him reaching for her and having his hands scrabble at empty sheets while his mind swore to him she was there. Those were the worst kind, the kind that sometimes left him sitting straight up on the bed, covered in nervous sweat, groaning aloud in pain and frustration. After those, when he was back in his apartment, he would rest his head against the headboard uncomfortably so that he couldn't fall back asleep, to such horrors, and wait for the morning to come. When they were on the road, sometimes he woke Robb in the other bed with his mumble. His captain would only murmur an inquiry if he was fine, in the infuriating, heart-wrenching tone of voice that said he understood everything. All Gendry could do was reply yes and lie back down rigidly, hoping to avoid dreams until the sun brought its daytime relief, which was still quite painful.

To his gratitude, though, in the early weeks of the month another news story in the world of baseball rocked the axis enough that all of his teammates forgot about his emotional trauma and focused all of their attention elsewhere. For his own part, admittedly, he was as shocked and intrigued and disturbed by the news as all of the others, and on the plane ride back to Winterfell one Sunday evening, when Luwin brought an update to his players, Gendry listened as eagerly as all of the others.

"It _is _Aegon Targaryen," the manager told his players, to collective sighs and gasps of disbelief. "Apparently he's been living overseas for the past fifteen years under an assumed name, ever since the death of his father, Rhaegar. Been playing pro in Pentos for the last two seasons. Somehow Tywin Lannister got wind of him." Luwin raised an eyebrow. "Or was hiding him all along. Either way, they made him a major league star's contract and the next day he was wearing a Monarchs uniform in King's Landing."

The air in the plane had been stale in the wake of the announcement, but at length Mikken cleared his throat. "Well? How's the bugger done? I haven't been paying attention to the Monarchs' statistics lately."

Robb, leaning against the window next to Gendry in the back corner of the plane, cleared his throat. "He's 12 for 27 with two home runs and ten runs batted in."

"Bah," Mikken said, throwing a hand forward nonchalantly. "Good. He's got beginner's luck, which means he'll fall off in a week or two and no one will ever think about him again.

He spoke with assurance, but the rest of the look didn't look nearly as sure. A mixture of surprised faces and wary glances were being directed towards Luwin, who stood stoically watching his players and brooding on his own thoughts. Gendry didn't know how to receive the news; Rhaegar Targaryen had been dead since shortly before his birth, putting Aegon at a year or two older than his own age. Having never had a chance to hear or see the reputed legend play except by tape, unlike some of the older members of the team, it did not come as so much of a shock to him as to them that a long lost son had returned to the league. The murmurings that rippled throughout his teammates, though, suggested he was of the treasured few who weren't completely thrown off by the confirmation of the revelation.

Edric, for one, though he was younger than Gendry and could also not have seen Rhaegar Targaryen, glanced about the faces grimly before addressing Mikken directly. "Don't be so sure, sir. Just look at Gendry. Aside from a speed bump here or there, he hasn't stumbled. Hitters still have no idea what's coming at them when he throws or how hard, and it's been months now, for him."

Gendry shifted at being mentioned, but the rest of the passengers seemed to take the statement in stride without question or dissuasion, which gave him a weak nudge of pleasure in the mix of a whirlwind of pain that his teammates believed in him. Especially in wake of recent events. He also did not miss the fact that the compliment came on the heels of a warning not to assume Aegon Targaryen's success would suddenly fizz out and disappear.

Mikken merely grunted at Edric, cocking his head thoughtfully while shrugging, but Cayn's words were sharper, more tight with emotion. "Is it true, as well, that Tywin Lannister made his son the general manager of the Monarchs?"

"Yes," Luwin nodded, crossing his arms. "Which is no real surprise. If you haven't met Tyrion Lannister, you wouldn't know it, but he's usually one of the smarter people in most rooms he walks into, and almost always the most cunning. Quite qualified for the position."

_The Imp_, Gendry thought, quoting the youngest Lannister's behind-closed-doors nickname. He had never met the man who suffered from dwarfism, but the stories circulated around the world and the baseball world, in general. Most were laughable, and none particularly appetizing, but all painted a picture of a quick-witted, resentful man who lived for reasons of his own knowledge and his alone.

Hallis, a few seats forward of Gendry, bristled as Gendry returned from his own thoughts. "So what's going to happen? Investigation?"

"Of course not," Luwin said, shaking his head briskly. "There's no call for one. Claiming someone's name is not a crime, even if it's not true, but the boy certainly looks the part... purple eyes, silver hair, pale but fine complexion. All could be faked, I suppose, but it seems an awful lot of trouble to go to just to claim you're the son of a twenty-years-dead pitcher, no matter how good he was. He doesn't need the name to back him up so far, anyway, he's hitting well regardless of his last name."

"If he's giving the Monarchs that much of a boost..." Mikken murmured.

Luwin shook his head, a deep tone of discontent leaving his throat. "It's not as though they need it. They're a sure lock for the division already, the toughest team ahead come playoff time."

"We shouldn't worry, though," Edric said. "Because they're in the other league. We wouldn't have to face them until the World Series, and it's just whoever plays the best ball on the given day once we get there."

A few muttered agreements came up from around the plane, but most of the players held their silence, still watching Luwin with trepidation, wondering about Gendry's replacement as baseball's newest wonder. Gendry himself took it quietly, not even bothering to say anything to Robb. For his part, the Direwolves' captain had watched the exchange mostly in silence, a look of consideration that reminded Gendry irritably of Robb's father. Between his captain and the reactions of the players, though, Gendry had things far closer to home on his mind than the World Series. That was still lifetimes away, perhaps literally, with a mountain of games to get through and win first.

Not to mention the other things that popped up.

The next afternoon, as they prepared for a night game against the Central Division's Harrenhal Phantoms, Ned Stark strode into the locker room with darting eyes. Gendry ignored him, as he had every time the owner had come to inspect the team since the event that had rocked Gendry's life, but, to his dismay, the moment Ned Stark found him sitting in front of his locker the general manager made a beeline for him.

"A word," Stark growled under his breath as he passed Gendry.

Grudgingly, Gendry looked up, but Ned Stark was already strutting from the room, clearly expecting Gendry to follow in his wake. Gendry suppressed a grunt and growl of annoyance and thoroughly considered just blowing the man off, not caring in the slightest about the consequences. Jory, several paces away, however, noticed Gendry's troubled face and shook his head, jerking it after Ned Stark with vehemence. So, after gritting his teeth and chucking his cap and mitt angrily back into his locker, Gendry dropped the cleat he'd been about to pull on and walked after Ned Stark wearing one shoe.

The man was waiting for him in the hall with crossed arms and a set face, and Gendry wondered what he'd done this time. Thought of Arya? Dreamed of Arya? Too much bile rose in his throat to control, and with venom he spat, "What now?"

Ned Stark's eyes widened by a fraction, and Gendry hoped with a violent glee that he had struck a nerve coded for a loud reaction, but the owner's face otherwise didn't change and his voice was as stony as always, like Gendry hadn't even spoken. "I've noticed that you're letting your emotions get to you when you pitch."

Gendry blinked. He couldn't help the edge on his tone. "What?"

"Your concentration is lax," Ned Stark said, frowning. "You let pitches get away from you, hitters get away from you. Your focus is becoming a concern."

After a moment of standing stupidly with his mouth hanging open, Gendry scoffed. He spoke without considering the words leaving his mouth, but Ned Stark seemed not to notice the more colorful inserts. "I'm still converting the fucking saves, aren't I?"

"What's not a problem but is a concern now, may come back to haunt you later if it's not remedied," Ned Stark replied quietly. "And I know you're dealing with some heavy emotion right now, but I need to know if you can clamp it down when you have to and do the job for your team."

For a few long seconds, Gendry simply stared at Ned Stark in incredulous shock. _You have the fucking audacity_, he thought to himself, wondering if he was thinking loud enough for Ned Stark to hear, _to fucking tear apart my life, and then you come down here to bitch about it because I'm struggling to pick up the pieces? When it's not even affecting my game?_

To prevent himself from ruining everything, Gendry took a deep breath and released it before answering further. "Shouldn't Luwin be the one talking to me? Or Coach Cassel? As far as I thought I knew, it's one of their calls if I'm going to get yanked out of my role, isn't it?"

Ned Stark took a step forward, into Gendry's personal space, so that they were face to face, Gendry standing only an inch or two taller but feeling on equal footing with the man. He refused to flinch, or to back down, but was still eye-to-eye when Ned Stark opened his mouth back up and snarled softly, "It is my team, it is my concern. Now I need to know if you handle it or if we're going to have a problem. You've already cracked under pressure once—"

Gendry turned and began to walk away. He didn't care. He absolutely didn't care, and didn't want to hear another word about what he had or hadn't done or needed to do or had to do or else.

He'd gone perhaps four steps when Ned Stark's livid voice split the air in two behind him. "You take one more bloody step and I'll—"

"You'll what?" Gendry cried, swinging around, taking a single step back towards the older man in his anger. This man had lifted him off of the streets. This man had given him a chance, given him a future, given him comfort and hope and taken away hunger and despair. And yet he taken away much more, as well, and also destroyed a future Gendry wanted so much that it nearly sent him to his knees remembering what he had held at his fingertips for the briefest of times. "Cut me? Go ahead, _Ned_." For the first time, as he deliberately hissed the man's first name, Gendry managed to get a satisfactory reaction out of Ned Stark; the man's face contorted in surprise and anger, but Gendry didn't stop. "Do it, and see if I care. See if I care! You've taken everything else from me, why not make it a complete package, eh?"

He finished his tirade facing the shorter man, his arms spread wide in futility. It was very strange, actually beholding a result of his words in Ned Stark's posture and face, but there was no doubt that he was mildly taken aback by Gendry's words.

At length, Ned Stark cleared his throat. "That explosion is what I am talking about. You're clearly not in possession of yourself."

Anger burst inside of him once again, but he had had enough of being angry, enough of being upset, and he only sighed instead. Trying to put on a brave face, he murmured, "I'm as in control as I can possibly be. What do you want from me? I did what you asked. I did everything you asked, and it burned me every freaking step of the way. Isn't that enough for you?"

Ned Stark shook his head. "Can you get better control than possible, then? Can I trust you out there?"

"I can't believe you're asking me that," Gendry said. He shook his own head and raised both palms to scrub at his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry, sir, but, honestly, do you even _know _how difficult it is right now to do _anything_?"

"Yes," Ned Stark told him quietly, in a voice of ice and eyes of fire. "I do." He turned his eyes away from Gendry for a moment, searching about the dark hall they stood in, glancing over his shoulder and over Gendry's, even biting his lip in a way that reminded Gendry agonizingly of someone else. Finally, Ned Stark dropped his crossed arms and gave the slightest of shrugs. "Please do the best that you can."

Without waiting for a response from Gendry or making any other statement himself, Ned Stark pushed past him and back through the door to the locker room. Gendry watched him go in disbelief, taking a step towards and leaning his body against the wall once he was alone in the hallway. He gritted his teeth in frustration, in pain, and tried for several moments to relax his body while curling and uncurling his fists at his sides. The words of Ned Stark burned in his mind, burning with a different flame than the one he had held before, burning with cruel unfairness and expectation instead of hearty, insatiable anger. It took a few minutes for him to regain control of himself enough to walk back into the locker room, where his teammates went out of their ways to act as though they didn't know something of what had just passed between him and Ned Stark in the hallway.

He tried to put his owner and general manager out of his mind as the bullpen shagged the batting practice flyballs, but the words nagged at the back of his thoughts, begging him, forcing him to pay attention to them. It wasn't easy to pitch, he admitted; not normally, no matter who he was facing, and especially not now, not knowing that one of the main reasons for his success—the _main _reason, probably—was gone. Ned Stark's words made him furious, as well. The man was usually understanding and compromising, but in this instance Gendry felt that the owner had done the deed, and he was supposed to shoulder all of the burden. And, after doing so, Ned Stark was telling him that he wasn't doing it well enough. But the owner didn't know, couldn't possibly know, how difficult it was for Gendry to climb out of bed in the morning these days, and certainly didn't know what a struggle it was to pretend, at least around others, that everything was or would be all right. He had no right to ask of Gendry what he did. He had no right to take from Gendry what he had.

As the relievers trekked across the outfield just before the game's start, Gendry found himself remembering the words he'd shot back at Ned Stark, inviting the man to cut him from the team, the very action that he had feared so deeply that he had broken the only good relationship he had ever had. But, then again, that wasn't necessarily true; it had been his fear of what Arya's life might become had they been together without the reliance on his fastball that had been the catalyst to the reaction. Nevertheless... thinking back to what he'd said, he was shocked to find that even though his words had been exclaimed out of anger, he meant all of them. So shocked was he by this revelation that he nearly ran face first into the outfield door to the bullpen, and could only sit on the end of a bench alone while he tried to figure it out. It didn't matter anymore; did it? He went through the motions, he threw the pitches he was supposed to... but it all had less of a meaning than it used to. It was almost done without desire. Like everything that before had inspired him to throw each and every ball as hard as he possibly could... was gone.

_I love baseball_, he told himself, trying to fight the revelation. Yet another part of him whispered back, _Not as much as what you lost_.

That voice was still bothering him through the first three innings, through Robb's home run and a two-run double from Hallis, through the sixth inning when the starter was yanked early to protect the one-run lead of the Direwolves. In the seventh the Winterfell hitters seemingly broke the game open with a four-run inning, but Harrenhal retaliated by putting a three-spot on the scoreboard heading into the bottom of the eighth, at which time the call came through to the bullpen for Gendry to start warming up for the save opportunity.

Gendry shed his jacket and grabbed his glove, stringing out his arm and elbow like he usually did. After going through a brief series of stretches he took the ball from the catcher and started playing catch from halfway to the shortened mound at the far end of the bullpen, stretching his arm, stretching his mind, trying to forget the words, forget his pain, forget everything and just focus on throwing the baseball.

When he stepped onto the rubber, his first warm-up pitch sailed over the catcher's head, slamming hard into the practice padding five feet out of catching ranging and careening away so hard that Gendry caught it back on one hop. He swore under his breath, hearing the hissed exclamations of surprise from the relievers still sitting close by. He quickly muttered an apology and readied himself for the next pitch; it spiked in the turfy mat laid down before the plate, and the catcher, who didn't have padding beyond shin guards and a mask, took the ball on the right side of his chest, gawking in pain as it struck him. The bullpen coach glared over at him questioningly as he rushed over to make another apology, which the bullpen catcher brushed off without concern. Gendry, guilty and frustrated and struggling for control, ignored the voices bouncing around inside of his head, ignored the looks of worry and unease he was receiving from everyone else in the bullpen.

He managed to put the next ten or so throws into the catcher's mitt—one of them on a short hop—but he felt off. At one point, his coach approached him and asked if he was all right to go, which he answered perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary that he was. He refused to back out, refused to be anything less than prepared to go into the game. He was the freaking team's closer, and he could close the game, after all, but every time he wound up to take a pitch, it was a little bit harder to force himself past the thoughts, past the concern, past the upset, and make the pitch go where we wanted to. Most of the time, it didn't.

Before he knew it, the eighth inning ended, the Direwolves clinging to a two-run lead, and he was out the bullpen door and jogging for the mound in the middle of the infield. As soon as he left the safety of the outfield wall, as soon as he came in sight of the fans, the stadium began to fill with cheers. Gendry Waters on the way for the save; the game's youngest closer, the rookie who shouldn't have been. It felt like a mile-long run just getting to the pitching rubber, as though, for the first time ever, he was focusing on the crowd and the fact that they were all watching him instead of focusing on the mound, the way he'd always done before, when he couldn't believe that he was where he was, playing the game he loved on a level he had hardly even dared to dream of. Now, however, he wasn't looking at the mound; he was looking up at the stands, at the faces watching him, at the faces cheering for him, cheering for their closer that hadn't let them down. The fans didn't love him, though, he knew; they loved what he represented, what he threw, what he won. Otherwise, he was nothing to them. Except to one fan, he thought.

As to that, though, he didn't even bother looking towards the luxury boxes of the Great Keep. There was nothing to look at. She wasn't there. He didn't need to see her to know _that_.

He managed to make all of the warm-up throws correctly, even though today Robb wasn't the one catching him. His motions were fine; his velocity was fine; yet something about the way the ball rolled off his fingertips just felt _wrong_, like some component was missing that he couldn't identify, that was integral but missing, a key piece of the puzzle lost in the mix. It felt that way, at least, to him, but the baseball still flew where it was supposed to, still found the catcher's mitt in the right spot.

_You're imagining it_, Gendry told himself. But he wasn't, and he knew it, and as the throw-down went through to second base he couldn't help but wonder if it would ever feel correct again. _It has to. You have a job to do. You have a job to do right now. One-run cushion. Three outs to get. _

So he dug his heels in, gritted his teeth, and waited for the sign as the first batter stepped into the box of the inning. The man was tall and gangly, the name of Polliver announced over the loudspeaker. He did not look particularly fierce, but even from the mound to the plate Gendry could make out the tattoo of a giant bull on his arm. Someone had once called Gendry a bull... _focus, you fucking bastard!_ he cursed himself, shaking his head and growling fiercely as Polliver got into his stance.

A fastball was called for. Gendry threw it, and missed the strike zone low for ball one. Polliver glared at him as he took the receive throw, as if sizing him up even more than he had the pitch, but Gendry did his best to ignore the man—it was far more difficult to ignore the voice nagging him towards his memories in his head, a fact he despaired over. It had never been this bad before...

_You're better than this_.

Robb would have called for another fastball, Gendry knew, but the backup wanted a slider, which Gendry firmly considered shaking off before deciding to mess up the scouting report. He nodded and came set, and dropped the pitch nicely into the lower corner of the zone for strike one. The crowd echoed polite applause. Polliver didn't swing, but nor did he give any indication that he had been surprised by the pitch, despite it being the first Waters breaking ball he'd ever seen.

On the next pitch, a fastball Gendry thought he had thrown perfectly, Polliver pulled his hands in tight to his body, the bull gleaming large and angry on his forearm, and barreled the pitch down the left field line. Gendry turned as the crowd began to groan, watching the ball bounce and spin its way down in the left field corner as the outfielder rushed after it. Polliver made an unnecessary slide into second as Hallis caught the return throw in short left field and jogged it in, to more groans from the fans.

_One-run cushion_, Gendry reminded himself forcefully. The runner on second didn't matter. All he needed to do was get the next three hitters out.

He had never heard of the next batter, though, though he prided himself on a surprising knowledge of baseball and baseball players despite his humble upbringing. The nickname that the loudspeaker gave was the most curious thing: Gendry had no idea what the "Tickler" had done to earn his nickname, but his nonchalant face, a face so nondescript that it was difficult to perceive his age, made Gendry think that he didn't want to stick around and find out. Perhaps of the most average body ever, the Tickler stepped into the box with no discernible stance.

Gendry swallowed, reminding himself that he only needed three outs, and looked for the sign. Fastball was called, which Gendry agreed with, and he came set. Polliver was perhaps a foot or two farther off second than Gendry liked, but not far enough that could warrant a pickoff move to Hallis, who was watching Gendry with hawk eyes. Making sure to pause long enough not to allow a good jump if Polliver tried to steal third—Robb wasn't behind the plate at all, so he didn't want to give the baserunners any advantages—Gendry strode and delivered a strike one heater on the inside corner.

This time, the catcher wanted another fastball, up and in on the Tickler, and Gendry threw it. Once again, the batter didn't swing, turning his head to watch the pitch slip by, the cruel, strange twist to his face unchanged.

_Okay. Put him away_.

A slider was called for, but Gendry didn't want to mess around, so he shook the signs off until he got a low fastball and then nodded. Making sure Polliver was staying put, he strode to the plate and released the ball. The pitch arced downward low in the zone, a virtually unhittable heater on the outside corner. At the last moment, the Tickler thrust his bat head out and managed to nick the pitch, lifting it over the catcher's mitt and careening back to the backstop for a harmless foul ball.

Gendry shrugged it off—he was still ahead in the count—and reset with a new baseball. When the slider was signed a second time, he decided to try it, a bender low in the zone or low enough to try and make the Tickler fish. Gendry knew that when he threw it right, it was virtually unhittable. And he needed outs, so he came set with a slider grip.

_I don't know why you're messing with the slider._

The words, a distant echo from a postgame encounter long past, nearly made him flinch into a balk. They panged and resonated painfully in his head, so hard that it was all he could do not to step off of the mound for a moment, before he finally grew angry at himself, angry at his mind, and forced himself to step forward and make the pitch.

The ball arced as it should have; his release was true. It surged towards the heart of the plate and abruptly plummeted towards the dirt just behind homeplate, whistling by the strike zone, looking for all intents and purposes like a strike up to the moment that it wasn't. Yet the Tickler was seemingly unfazed. He lazily raised his bat off of his shoulder and brought it an inch or two down as though he found it boring deciding whether or not to swing, before letting the pitch slip by for ball one. It was an easier feat said than done, Gendry knew. He growled in disappointment that the pitch hadn't resulted in a strikeout as he received the ball back.

He came back the next pitch, throwing a fastball as hard as he could high and inside again. The Tickler brought his bat around again just in time to get a miniscule piece of the ball, just enough to knock it off its flight course and avoid a foul tip into the catcher's mitt for strike three. As irritation grew in Gendry at his inability to slip on by the infuriating man, the Tickler continued to torture him by letting a second virtually unhittable slider sink to his knees with hardly a second glance. As if he had known what was coming. Gendry watched Polliver as he came set for another fastball, but there was no indication that the runner on second was stealing their signs and relaying them to the Tickler. The pitch was fouled off once again, to his further annoyance.

Finally, with a 2-2 count and after a slider Gendry dropped into the zone only to have it, too, fouled away, the Tickler couldn't manage to get any more than the end of his bat on an outside fastball, rolling it lazily to Hallis, who had to charge it in order to throw the man out. Polliver, running behind Hallis' charge, managed to move to third, though, but once again Gendry reminded himself that all he needed was outs, and the run didn't matter. And then he could get out of this place. He could maybe get away from his turmoil for a little while.

The next hitter to step to the plate was a bulky, ugly man who was announced as Rorge. Gendry wasn't close enough to make any more than an approximation, but he was relatively sure that the man was missing a nose. Which only made him uglier, and more terrifying.

Gendry shook his head at himself, telling and believing that he had no reason to be fearful of this man. _It's a fucking baseball game. Gregor Clegane is one thing, this guy..._

He had managed to fend off the uncertainty eating at the back of his mind for the Tickler's at-bat, but as Rorge dug in his fingers slipped from their normal, undaunted firmness on the baseball. He cursed under his breath and tried to secure it again, but no matter how he turned the ball with his fingers it just didn't feel right. It didn't feel the same as it had before.

Nevertheless, he didn't step off the mound. He came set with a fastball in mind, and aimed for the lower outside corner. He missed his spot: the ball was too high and too fat, sailing towards the dead middle of the strike zone. Rorge's eyes lit up like fireworks, the bat head screaming into the zone with the batter's eye in center field in mind as the ball's destination. The wild swing proved too wild, luckily for Gendry; the man swung through the pitch completely, perhaps the best pitch he would see the entire series, nearly coming out of his spikes in the process, and Gendry heaved a sigh of relief as Polliver went scurrying back to second base.

When he read the next sign as a fastball, he immediately shook it off. His mistake on the previous pitch was still weighing heavy in his head and he wasn't prepared for the chance of slipping up in the same motion. A slider was dropped down, called for low and inside, and he nodded slowly as he slid up and came set.

His stride felt unusual, but his foot came down in the right place and his elbow twisted true, giving the cringing burst of pain he now knew indicated that he had a ligament tear there. The ball twisted in its flight, arcing downwards, a difficult curve. Rorge swung.

The ball sailed.

Gendry turned to watch it, started to swear as it flew high out to left field, finally turning and jogging to back up home plate, even though there was no need... He was sure the ball was gone, was sure that the left fielder rearing back to the wall had no chance to leap fifty feet in the air and snag the baseball that would tie the ballgame...

Abruptly, the baseball died. Its momentum stopped dead, plummeting from the sky like an anchor. With his hand braced against the wall, pressed as close as possible, looking up at the horrorstruck fans watching the baseball tumble towards them, the left fielder gathered himself and leaped straight into the air, irking every last inch of his vertical leap to get over the wall.

Somehow, Gendry watched the man's glove close on the baseball, bringing it back down into the field of play.

The crowd erupted in cheers, applause and spectacular ovation clouding the fact that Polliver trotted neatly in from third to erase Gendry's one-run cushion. Gendry, for one, wasn't that concerned. As he walked back out to the mound, he tipped his hat in the direction of the left fielder, showing his own appreciation for the man's play as the ball was thrown around the horn. The crowd's cheers momentarily shrouded the fact, but he had narrowly dodged a bullet. Which Ned Stark had no doubt been watching, too.

_Hung the one breaking ball and got lucky._

Bubbling from a phone call were the words, a phone call made in a late night at a time when he had absolutely no idea what they would become. How they would fall apart. He blinked, forgetting where he was for a moment, cocooned for a moment in his grim anguish. The ball impacting his glove from third base returned him to the setting, and for a moment all he could do was stare confusedly at it for a few seconds. He shook his head at himself, trying to clear it, trying to forget. On his way back to the hill, he turned his head towards the Direwolves' dugout and made fleeting eye contact with Robb. The team captain's gaze was crammed with concern. Gendry forced his face blank, his mind empty, and pointedly turned away.

It didn't matter that everything he did had her everywhere, that he couldn't get her out of his head. It didn't matter that he couldn't escape or shut it out. Whether or not he was losing his mind, all that mattered was that he had one out to get. For his team. Everything else came after.

The speaker announced Biter, and Gendry had to look twice to make sure it wasn't a joke. Observing the man stepping up to the plate, however, it was clear that his nickname was no coincidence. The man's jaw worked ferociously, his eyes gleaming and murderous, giving Rorge a run for his money as the fiercest-looking ballplayer on Harrenhal. He was nearly as ugly as Rorge and twice as intimidating in pure manner alone; he crashed his bat on the plate like he was smashing a large animal's skull, and audibly growled at Gendry, in a way that would have been only silly from anyone else. From Biter, it was mildly threatening.

He had seen no scouting report on someone named "Biter", as far as he could remember. The catcher glanced uneasily up at the man and back at Gendry before tentatively signing for a fastball. At an equal loss, Gendry came set, paused, strode. Even with a straight fastball, he could feel the strain in his arm, the power threatening to unravel his entire appendage and push him into splinters of pain. In the milliseconds before the pitch left his hand, the flicker of a memory of her voice burst from nowhere.

_Who knows how far your arm can take you?_

He flinched, and missed his release point. In the midst of a groan of anguish and disarray, Gendry watched the baseball sail too far inside from its intended destination. Too fat. Biter, however, made no attempt to swing at the pitch. He dropped his lead elbow, into the corner of the strike zone, where the fastball collided with his tricep, omitting a sickening thud.

The hitter dropped the bat and roared in pain while the umpire raised his hands to signify dead ball. Biter glared at Gendry furiously, as though he hadn't stuck his elbow right out where it could be hit, but Gendry was already stalking towards the plate, brandishing an angry finger at Biter, simultaneously fighting off the onslaught of emotion in his head.

"He stepped in front of the pitch!" he shouted at the umpire. "You can't give him first base for that, he dropped his arm right into the strike zone!"

With a grunt of fury, Biter took one intimidating step towards the mound, towards Gendry, but the umpire was already between them, halting the fight before it started. To Gendry, the official proclaimed, "I didn't see an arm drop, I saw a pitch hit the batter!"

"Yeah!" Gendry cried, acting out the scene. The crowd, whether it knew what had happened or not, was being very vocal with their own disapproval. "Because he dropped his arm just so he would get hit by the pitch!"

The umpire geared up for an argument, but Luwin had arrived from the dugout, and without hesitation he took up Gendry's argument, holding a single arm in his pitcher's direction as if to hold the man back. Gendry grudgingly obeyed, stepping back to watch Luwin plead his case. The benches were both on the top step; Gendry could feel Robb's eyes on him. The eyes he was focused on, though, were Biter's, who still glared at him viciously.

The pure hatred there, on top of everything Gendry was experiencing, on top of the voices pounding away at his head and the horrible memories so deeply trenched that he didn't know how to begin fighting them, nearly made Gendry throw down his glove and charge full out at the ugly man. All of the weeks' anguish and sleeplessness and dilemma made him lift his foot off of the ground, the pure pain and harm behind losing Arya fueling rage inside of him, rage to hurt _something_, to pay the price for what had been taken from him...

It was pride that stopped him. His own damn, godforsaken stubborn pride. Ned Stark's words somehow replaced his daughter's inside Gendry's head. _If Arya had walked through that door, unbeknownst to you, you would have taken her head off._

She wasn't there. He knew that without a doubt. But Ned Stark was. And Gendry refused to show any weakness, any loss of control, before Ned Stark ever again. Biter may have been standing there glaring bloody murder, but it was not he who had harmed Gendry. Attacking the man wouldn't result in long-term satisfaction. Considering that he would be promptly thrown off of the team, it would likely result in no satisfaction whatsoever. And she would still be gone. Nothing in the world could change that.

Gendry gritted his teeth, set his feet, and refused to even look at Biter as Luwin assaulted the umpire verbally. Many times Gendry thought his manager was on the verge of getting tossed, but the official never made the irrevocable ejection. For as much as he looked like he wanted to. Finally, throwing his hands up into the air in frustration, Luwin turned and stalked back to the dugout with his shoulders hunched with fury. Biter was allowed to trot down to first base, growling in Gendry's direction the entire time, and all of a sudden, the tying run was on-base once again.

The voices—not _the _voices, _her _voices—were spinning around his head, mocking him, cheering him, taunting him. The crowd was on their feet, he realized. The sounds of their cheers for him, cheers against the unfair play that had just occurred, were deafening. Yet even they were drowned out by the horrific cacophony inside of his skull, the voices he couldn't run away from, the things making sweat burst forth on his brow and make his throwing hand shake ever so slightly in his hand.

_Toughness. Discipline. Focus._

Nearly moaning aloud with the effort, Gendry forced himself to climb back onto the mound and look in at the next hitter. Biter lead off of first, a painful thorn in Gendry's side. He had to finish the game. He had to get away. He had to be done with it, for just a little while longer.

He didn't even pay attention to the sign the catcher gave him; he was throwing fastball either way. Coming set, he paused, letting a seething breath hiss out of his lungs. His distraught state was audible on the whisk of air. Biter waited off first, the batter waited patiently in the box, the catcher opened his glove a little wider. Somewhere up above, Ned Stark was watching closely. Somewhere, far away... Arya wasn't.

_Fuck it._

He whirled, and threw the baseball to first base harder than he could have to the plate. Biter was completely unprepared. The first baseman had the ball in his glove before the ugly, growling tyrant had begun his dive back into the base. The angry roar of fury at being out by a mile was the last thing Gendry heard before the umpire called the out and the crowd ignited around them.

Their cheers rained down from all around, another win, another step towards the playoffs, another moment where no one realized just how fucked up Gendry Waters really was. He breathed a shuddering sigh of relief, partially a groan of pain, and wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand as the catcher came out to congratulate him on the save. For how he felt, Gendry couldn't entirely say it was a save.

The handshakes went along, the teammates slapping each other high-fives for the win. Robb gazed long and hard at Gendry as he went past, but Gendry looked away, trying with all of his might to look as if nothing was wrong. He entered the locker room near the back of the procession of players, but where the others were still happy and upbeat, Gendry tore off his uniform and marched into the shower as quickly as he could. Gripping the nozzle with a heavy hand, he swung the water as cold as it would go and stepped under it, not caring that the breath was knocked from his lungs. The only thing he cared about was that, for a second, he forgot what he had lost.

Then his body began to adjust to the cold, unthinkably, sending racing shivers up his spine, and the pain came rushing back full force.

Later, when his body temperature had more or less turned to normal, he was sitting in the locker room in jeans without a shirt on, holding his head in his hands. His teammates had noticed something was wrong, by then, but none of them made comments. Robb laid a hand on Gendry's shoulder, at length, but Gendry just shook his head and Robb nodded before going about his own business.

He'd finally stopped hearing his memories, moments in time when his arm and game had begun to follow things that she had told him. Now a headache had set it, cold, sharp, and heavy, and it didn't feel as though it would be leaving anytime soon. Beneath it all, the dull throb that had never diminished in the slightest kept eating away at him, but he threw a wall over it, as he always did, begging it to remain closed, to remain hard and determined and lethal, as it always was. He was beginning to lose confidence in his ability to continue in the same capacity, however. Every minute was a minute closer to losing control, to letting the naked agony of his heartbreak wash over and destroy him.

"Mr. Waters?"

Pulling his head from his hands, he looked up. A tall woman, formally dressed in a jacket and skirt, stood a few paces away, holding a microphone. A few paces behind her, a man stood with a camera. Gendry sighed silently.

"Jeyne Heddle," the reporter introduced herself, reaching out a hand that he didn't rise to his feet to shake. She was thin, distantly pretty, with scraggly brown hair that surrounded her face to her shoulders. "We'd like to conduct a postgame interview with you. Just a few questions. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes."

Her voice was rather authoritative; Gendry didn't feel as though he had an option to refuse. He was in no mood to answer any questions, but he managed to conduct a polite response without sighing. "Yeah, sure. Where we gonna do this?"

The woman, Jeyne, grinned thinly. "Right here would be a fine, just let me get the word up to the booth that we're ready to go and we can begin."

Gendry nodded, watching her, whiling pulling a shirt from his locker and sliding it over his head. He wasn't overwhelmingly attracted to her; she was no Daenarys Targaryen. Nevertheless, it was an outstanding opportunity to try to feel something, anything to make him forget what was inside of him. Jeyne Heddle raised a hand to her ear and spoke into the microphone, conferring with her superiors above, in the press box, preparing for the interview, and Gendry watched her movements, her face, trying desperately to feel _something_. Nothing at all stirred within him. Nothing at all.

Jeyne nodded to the camera man, and then turned to Gendry with a smile. "Ready?"

"Yes."

"We're on in a moment," she said, moving into position so that the camera could capture both her and Gendry. He rose to his feet slowly as she did so; she stood up to nearly his forehead, taller than he was accustomed to, taller than he was attracted to. He watched her eyes stare out in space for a moment before shooting Gendry a confident grin and turning to the camera. After a moment of pause, she began, "Thanks, guys, I'm down here in the clubhouse with Gendry Waters. Gendry, some critics have suggested that you've been scuffling of late, but you still came out strong tonight and fought through some adversity. What's been your mindset lately?"

She held the microphone out towards him as he blinked, largely stunned by the question. It took an embarrassing second for him to fumble words together. "Um, the goal is always to get outs and get the game. I don't know anything about scuffling, but I know that my job hasn't changed. I'm supposed to go out there and close the game after my team has set us up in good position to win the game. it's my responsibility. It's my job. I've got to get it done. That's what my mindset has always been."

Jeyne nodded without actually looking like she was listening as she retracted the microphone. "The stolen home run in left field by Heward... what was running through your mind at that time?"

Gendry barked a quiet laugh, but there was no amusement. "I was glad he pulled it down. It was a great play. It saved me, it saved the game. I owe it to him. Made a bad pitch and got lucky." _Hung the one and got lucky_. He cringed, on-camera. Thankfully, Jeyne didn't seem to notice.

"Take us back to the pickoff," the reporter told him. "Not a very conventional way to end the game, but it got the job done."

He shrugged. "He was off too far, I saw an opportunity and I took it. I managed to catch him offguard and get the out. Like I said, an out is an out, and my job is to get three of them. Had a good tag at first to complete the deal, which I've never had to worry about. I've got a great team behind me, great teammates." Great teammates, who looked the other way when he expected them to shout, who comforted him when he deserved far less. He managed not to flinch. "I can always trust them to do their jobs if I do mine."

"Gendry, thanks for your time." He murmured his own polite thanks into the microphone, as was always polite to do and expected to be done, and then Jeyne turned to face the camera herself. "Gendry Waters. Guys, back to you in the booth." Gendry waited for a few moments, until Jeyne dropped the microphone and relaxed. She looked at him in the corner of her eye and gave him a tentative grin. "You give safe answers, Gendry."

It had been "Mr. Waters" a moment ago. That should perhaps have been a fact of delight, not annoyance. He turned back to his locker and shrugged. "Everyone says that, but it's not the truth. I don't give safe answers, I just give answers. If I didn't believe in them, I wouldn't say them."

"That's an interesting way of putting it."

He darted his own look at her in his peripheral vision, shaking his head ever so slightly. It sounded like she was testing him. "It's how it is."

Her cameraman turned away and shutting down his equipment as she tilted her head slightly to the side, glaring at him quizzically. She was pretty, he decided, if with a slightly combative personality. He liked that, though. Didn't he? He tried not to watch as she reached in a pocket of her jacket and brought out a business card. As she proffered it to him, he readied himself for some proverbial quip about giving her a call if he required anything more of her, or if he ever wanted to give less interesting answers. He was sick of business cards, sick of reporters offering, sick of female reporters offering them.

All Jeyne said was, "Call me."

He felt his mouth drop open in surprise. Even more disturbing was the fact that his hand closed around the business card. She offered another grin before motioning to the camera man. The two members of the Direwolves' media crew shuffled out of the locker room. Mikken cast a glance in Gendry's direction as they went, his eyes flashing down to the card in Gendry's hand before raising an eyebrow.

Gendry, for his part, stared after them for a moment longer, still surprised. He glanced down at the business card, at the name there, at the number inscribed in pristine script. Before, he hadn't had any intention to call anyone. He just... couldn't. With the card in his hand, though, Jeyne's last words floating through his head, he realized that the memories plaguing him had stopped, the turmoil had gone silent, and now, instead of feeling tortured, he just felt... empty. Completely empty and completely alone. He didn't let go of the business card—a card Jeyne had given specifically to him, a card he was meant to call for purposes that were not professional—as he gathered his remaining things in his duffle bag and marched out of the clubhouse.

As he walked the concourse to leave the stadium, though, he took a detour of several steps to drop the card in a trash bin, and didn't look back as he kept moving. Feeling tortured and agonized was better than feeling nothing at all. Or so he convinced himself, as he pushed out to the parking lot, climbed onto his motorcycle, and rode home in the night.

His dreams were troubled that night. But he fought through it, and through the next day, and the day after that. Somehow, Gendry Waters made himself survive, but it was a far cry from living.


	22. Chapter 21

**21**

It was the second week of August when Sansa finally sat down with their parents and told them about Joffrey, and Clegane, and what had happened to her in King's Landing.

The confession came shortly after she finally convinced Arya, after days and days of emotional beseeching, that the older sister had not been the one to reveal her clandestine relationship with Ned Stark. It had been no easy feat; for nearly a week after the event in question, Arya had either holed herself in her room or fled to the Godswood with Nymeria, spending every lit hour of the day between the trees, drawing comfort from her dog, trying to draw life from anything when she felt as though there was nothing inside of her anymore. Perseverance had finally frustrated her to the point that she actually let Sansa tell her side of the story, but it had still been much more time and many more conversations that ended with both sisters crying—to both sisters' horror—before Arya realized that she was being irrational, unfair, rude, and horrible to Sansa when Sansa needed her to be there for her. After that, in the shared pain of the men they had lost, Arya hacked away at Sansa's reluctance to reveal what had happened until she finally convinced her older sister that their parents needed to be told the whole story. Or at least Catelyn.

Because Arya was not on speaking terms with their father. As became evident only a few hours after their thunderous encounter in Ned Stark's study, he had not told his wife anything of what he had learned about Arya and Gendry, and had acted purely on his own impulse. Arya did not see much of either parent as often as was possible, but when she did see her mother the woman winced as though she was sympathetic. Arya didn't know whether to believe it or not—there was no evidence of an argument between her parents, even though they usually closeted their fights away from their children—but she was in no mood to interact with anyone in her family except for Sansa. Because Sansa understood. Bran would be too inquisitive and only make it worse. Rickon was too young to understand. Robb was far too close to the problem to make her do anything except hurt more. And if she had her way, Arya would never speak to her father again.

She herself was not present when Sansa told Ned and Catelyn Stark, but the atmosphere in the Manor changed that day. Sansa was no less torn by her heartbreak, but Catelyn made it a point thereafter to check in with both of her daughters daily, and try to convince them to talk about their problems. Arya resisted compulsively; Sansa seemed to let their mother in, if only a little every time. Ned Stark stormed about furiously, a trait normally out of his character that had surfaced in the wake of Arya's trauma, but softened whenever he saw either of them. Sansa seemed to hold a resentment towards their father, as well, for what he had done to Arya, but she still talked to him, answered him, didn't resist too viciously when he tried to pry into her feelings. Arya didn't hold it against Sansa, but she continued to turn her back and leave the room whenever Ned Stark entered.

Sansa herself was little more forthcoming about the details surrounding her final encounter with Clegane than she had been over the phone and after being collected from the airport. Try as she might, Arya could coax only a few details, though she wasn't overly positive that there were many more details to gather. Joffrey had been yelling, according to Sansa, yelling the entire time. She couldn't remember what, though she seemed to recall mostly hateful statements and profanity, but those that weren't directed at her were fiercely thrown at Clegane, who had stood in the living room taking the punishment stoically. Sansa still could not fathom what her lover had been doing in her apartment that morning, what had possessed him to come or what he had told Joffrey.

"I just don't know what to do," she whispered to Arya one afternoon, holed up in the elder sister's room in a rare lull where neither of them was close to tears. "I feel so lost... I think I'm really in love with him, Arya. I think I'm in love with Sandor Clegane, but I don't know what to do if I've lost him."

Arya listened sadly from the chair at Sansa's desk, feeling the hole in her stomach mirrored in her sister. "Have you tried calling him?"

"So many times. He doesn't pick up. Joffrey's called me a few times, too." Arya glanced at her nervously, but Sansa merely gave an indifferent shrug. "Left a couple voicemails. A couple times drunk and another one where he just explained that anything I'd left in the apartment had been given to charity."

"A Lannister giving to charity?" Arya quipped wryly. "You must have really fucked him up."

"I miss Sandor," Sansa said. Lying on the bed, she pulled the pillow towards her and hugged it to her chest. Her voice threatened to wobble. "I just want to go back to that day and stop. I want to leave Joffrey on the spot when he started yelling at us and tell Sandor that I love him."

"You shouldn't dwell on it."

"I know that," the older sister replied, wiping her eyes, "but I can't help it. He's always on my mind. Sometimes I forget, and I get excited, and then I remember that he's gone and my heart breaks all over again. Ten times a day that happens. I would love to stop thinking about it and sometimes I can get him off my mind for a little while, but he always pops back in when I'm least prepared and that hurts me eve-n more."

Arya could relate. Sleeping had become an interesting challenge. Sometimes she dreamed about beating Gendry up, which almost made her feel better, but other times she dreamed that she was still asleep in his arms. Those were the worst; those were the ones that jolted her awake and sent her spiraling into fits of sobs that kept her up the rest of the night. If she didn't dream at all, her sleep was restless, but if she did then it was painful. There was no way for her to win, so she started to try to delay sleeping altogether, as much as she possibly could. Then she would realize that she was clutching the shirt she had taken from Gendry's apartment, and every wound burst back open anew.

It was irony, in fate's foulest sense; the two Stark sisters finally found something in common, something to draw each other close for dear life, and that something turned out to be wrenching heartbreak.

Her avoidance of Ned Stark ended most unfortunately one night when her mother announced that they would be having dinner as a family, and there was no option for her to refuse. "Robb is driving over after the game, and it may be that we never have you and Sansa in the same place with the boys again, with the exception of holidays. Your father and I want to seize the opportunity to spend more time with our children before you all scatter on the wind."

The fact that she hadn't even known the Direwolves played that day was an obvious sign of Arya's fragile state. She sat up from her bed and peered at her mother narrowly. "I'm not hungry."

Catelyn Stark sighed. "I don't especially care, Arya, whether you're hungry or not. This is not for you. It's for me and your father. And I expect you to be at the dinner table at six, so that we can all enjoy this dinner as a family."

Her mother left before Arya could get in another word and she spent the next few hours sulking over the fact that she had to sit at a table with her father, probably make polite conversation, act as though nothing was wrong and that he wasn't to blame. She hadn't seen Robb in a few weeks, but he would probably only make her feel worse, too. Sansa was in a like state to her, she imagined, without the aversion to Ned Stark, but the older sister would no doubt do as was desired of her and attend the dinner without complaint, leaving Arya with no like excuse or explanation why she couldn't do it.

So, after forcing herself to pull on clothes she would have been willing to wear out of the house, Arya dragged herself down the stairs at five minutes to six, grumbling to herself about how much she didn't want to do it, about how much she didn't want to do anything. She ran into Sansa on the landing. Without saying a word, the two sisters reached an understanding of silence and, after a resigned nod they shared, both plodded down to the bottom foyer of Stark Manor.

Upon crossing the threshold of the kitchen, Catelyn Stark looked up from the cutting board to survey her two daughters. She offered a small smile as they rounded the island where she was chopping broccoli into tiny pieces and tossing it atop the alfredo pasta stewing on the stove. "Hello, girls. Would you mind helping me set the table?"

"Yes," Arya mumbled, but Sansa's exclamatory acceptance drowned out her dissent.

At least it kept her out of the kitchen. She was in no food to approach anything remotely having to do with cooking. She and Sansa did as they were bade, placing out the plates and silverware, and then, by reverting to old habit, the sisters sat down at their old, customary positions at the dinner table, the ordained order of the seating they had held when they were younger. They glanced at each other once they were seated, and Arya remembered that in those days she would everything done possible to annoy her sister seated across the table from her. Now they were the only two people in the family who understood one another.

Sansa's face indicated she was having similar thoughts, but they were both interrupted by Bran rolling into the room and braking his chair to a hall just through the doorway to peer at them. Arya geared herself for some witty remark or nosy inquisition as her brother peered at the both of them through his dark hair. Instead, Bran shrugged and said, "I hope someone will tell me what's going on soon enough."

Arya opened her mouth to snap something back quickly when Rickon walked into the room. Her eyes fell on the shadow of their father as he entered behind his youngest son, and she averted her eyes as quickly as she could—though not quick enough to avoid noticing his questioning, pleading glance in her direction. It didn't matter; there was no justification in the world for what he had done.

Robb followed Ned Stark into the room as Bran rolled to his spot at the table and Rickon popped up in his own chair. The eldest Stark greeted both of his sisters warmly. Arya actually stood to hug him briefly, and was surprised at the level of regret that his eyes displayed for her. She didn't get a chance to murmur anything under her breath to him to tell him she was fine, anything, before he moved away, greeting both of his brothers in ways only males could find affectionate. To Sansa, he offered more question than sympathy, but it was with equal concern. Arya seated herself back down to wait for the food to arrive, resigning herself at least to eating something resembling a nutritious meal while she was stuck at the table with her family. She was surprised enough that Robb's appearance hadn't completely broken her down that an appetite, however limited, had manifested.

From the end of the table, Ned Stark exhaled lazily. "I'm really glad we got the chance to do this. It's been too long."

Sansa and Robb murmured agreement. Arya said nothing, and kept her eyes fastened to the tablecloth. Bran, leaning back in his chair, glanced at their father out of the corner of his eye. "We've never really put forth the effort to do it before."

"Well, I'm glad we're doing it now," their father proclaimed, a little bit more gruffly.

"A shame we have to do it without Jon," Robb commented, settling himself into his own place. As one, the eyes of the five Stark children present swiveled to the kitchen door, but Catelyn was not yet finished with dinner and did not hear. Ned Stark was the only one who kept his eyes on the tale, albeit with a gruff exhalation that effectively ended the conversation. Arya, meanwhile, clenched her fists in the hem of her shirt and tried to destroy her empty pate by eye contact; she wasn't sure about her status as far as Jon went, in the aftermath of Ned Stark's revelation, but she was glad he hadn't tried to contact her since. She didn't know how she would react. In her eyes, he had betrayed her as much as their—as much as _her _father. That was another thing she still had trouble coming to grips with, weeks later; Jon was her cousin, her beloved cousin, but not her brother, as she had been told for years.

The silence around the table ensued for a few moments. Sansa cleared her throat quietly and straightened her utensils. Arya avoided looking anywhere near Ned and Robb, until finally Bran played the usual Samaritan and struck up a conversation with Robb around his two sisters, which Robb pounced on like a catcher and rolled with expertly. Arya could feel their father's eyes on her, and could see Sansa look up and give a small smile whenever his gaze rolled onto the older sister, but she refused to oblige him by returning the glance. She would _not _speak to him.

"All right," Catelyn Stark finally said, bustling into the dining room carrying a steaming pot of pasta. "I hope we're hungry. Arya, would you come help me carry in the rest?"

Arya rose to her feet without a word and went to trouble of rounding the long end of the table in order to follow her mother into the kitchen. As soon as they were out of sight of the kitchen, though, Catelyn rounded on her daughter and lowered her voice. "_Please_ try to be pleasant, okay? This isn't all for you, you know." Catelyn sighed, and then reached out with both hands and rubbed up and down Arya's arms until Arya made eye contact. "I want you to enjoy this time we have together, too. I'm not very happy about anything that's happened to you, I'll have you know. But right now is not the time for it. So can we just put that behind us for a little while, try to enjoy this dinner with each other, and worry about everything else, later?"

Her mother was completely capable of compassion, Arya knew, and loved her family very much, but it was still a statement that was wildly unexpected. Knowing that her mother had at least some misgiving about what Ned Stark had brought about made Arya feel better and worse, in mixed proportions, but also made her even less inclined to speak at the dinner table. Nevertheless, on top of the throbbing ache that never really subsided in her chest, Arya nodded and accepted the plate of steaming mashed potatoes her mother handed her before heading back into the dining room.

After dinner rolls, a fruit salad, beats, and pitcher of gravy had been placed onto the table again, Arya resumed retook her seat and Catelyn sat at the head of the table. Differing religious views stood in their family, but Ned Stark had never given qualms about his wife offering prayer to the Seven before they dug in, and it was done now quietly and swiftly before the men of the family attacked the delectable platters Catelyn had prepared.

"Bran," she spoke up, as she watched her sons tear into the pasta and potatoes, "you should tell your sisters and brother about your update."

Arya took a roll from the bowl and tore off a slim piece to nibble on as Bran promptly struggled to swallow his mouthful. "Um... well... I applied for an early scholarship to the Citadel in Oldtown, and I made the list of finalists. I have an interview next month."

"That's great, Bran," Arya mumbled, trying to put some emotion into it.

Bran shrugged. "Yeah, it is, but I'm not sure I want to go to the Citadel... I actually had athe thought in my head to check out the University of the Green."

"But that's over the Wall," Catelyn said, frowning slightly in thought. "Out of country. That would be more expensive."

"Yeah," Bran agreed, before giving a sly grin. "But it's not like we can't afford it."

"A scholarship?" Sansa repeated, in surprise, drawing the conversation back to a previous statement. "For college? But you're only fourteen."

"Well, he's been accelerated, as you know," Catelyn told her eldest daughter, handing the fruit salad to Rickon, who passed it along without so much as peering at anything healthy. "He's been taking enough credits that he should be able to graduate by the end of this coming school year. Speaking of that, I need to take you boys out shopping for your supplies, soon..."

"Yes, the school year's almost upon us," Ned Stark toned. Arya knew he was looking at his two daughters, but she stared at her roll defiantly. When Ned Stark spoke of school, it usually involved something that no one else would want to talk about in any other normal situation; in a normal year, he was too occupied with the coming end of the baseball season to take much interest in the beginning of the school year, but Arya had never minded. Now, she didn't even want to think about the fact that she was scheduled to return to the University of King's Landing in only a few short weeks' time. "I assume you girls' already have your schedules planned out?"

"Oh, yes," Sansa said brightly. "I've had mine since before the end of first term last year. I'm excited for my senior year to begin. I'm excited to be done with school, finally."

"Except for grad school, of course," Bran pointed out through a swallow of pasta, "though you might not even have to, depending on where you try to use your field." He shook his head with a roll of the eyes. "Why anyone would _ever_ want to educate elementary students for a living is beyond me."

While Sansa quietly berated their brother for his narrow-sightedness, Ned Stark swiveled around, nearly able to catch Arya's gaze before she tossed it evasively to the far wall, dryly gulping down a piece of her roll. Her father's voice carried heavy over the table. "And you, Arya? Is your schedule set yet?"

Arya glanced at her mother, who was watching her closely. Catelyn nodded minutely. Only after a heavy but quiet sigh, Arya stared at her vacant plate and finally voiced the thought that had been on her mind for the last several weeks. "Actually, I'm not sure I want to go back to King's Landing next month."

Her confession was met with a long moment of pause. Actual pause. Everyone at the table stopped eating or reaching for food except for Rickon, who kept chewing even as he, too, looked up at Arya. She watched her parents exchange eye contact down the table, and imagined that a silent argument or agreement was being had in the air hovering over the pasta. Sansa was regarding her with surprise and perhaps a little bit of betrayal—Arya couldn't blame her for that—but Robb's stare was almost the worst of all. He was... completely understanding, his eyes sad and his facial expression straight and thoughtful.

Slowly, as if everyone suddenly noticed the tension of the moment and struggled to meander over it, the clinking of utensils resumed, mostly because Arya's three youngest siblings put their heads down and forced themselves back into their food. Meanwhile, Robb glanced at Ned, who was glaring incriminatingly across the table at Catelyn, who set her own fork and spoon down carefully before folding her hands into her lap. Arya could sense the impending disappointment before her mother even began.

"Oh?" Catelyn murmured. She held the condescending tone of an adult trying to force a child into recognizing their own mistake. "And why would you say that?"

Arya summoned the courage to look up at her mother. "I'm just not in the mood to go back to that city. My first two semesters weren't very fun. I don't even know if I want to go back to college, at all. Especially not in King's Landing."

"And what would you do otherwise?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Travel. Go to the Wall and see Jon." Because she wanted to murder him. But she loved him too much. But he had betrayed her, stabbed her in the heart. "Whatever it is, all I know is that I _don't _want to go back to school in King's Landing. I hate it there."

Catelyn pointedly exchanged more eye contact with her husband, who had never dropped his hard glare, before sighing and tilting her head slightly to one side with pursed lips. "I'm not sure that is a mistake worth making, Arya. I think that college is a very important time in life, and that you'll regret it if you waste it."

"How would you know?" Arya replied, trying and failing to keep the accusation out of her voice. "You were married when you went to college. You had a _kid _when you went to college, and you didn't finish."

"In a way, that's what I'm saying. I didn't get the opportunity you have, and I don't want you to squander it just because of some temporary emotional trauma." Arya's jaw fell open, and she tried to come up with something snappy and horrible to say, but Catelyn pressed on first. "All of your dreams are in college, Arya. How do you expect to achieve your dreams if you don't stay?"

"You don't even support my dreams!" Arya blurted, shaking her head. "You don't even like baseball anymore, Mom. You don't want any of us to have anything to do with it. You would rather I _not _be a scout."

This time, it was Catelyn who stared across at Ned Stark with an indictment. "I have misgivings about the sport, yes, but I don't hold those against you if it's absolutely what you want to do. I just want you to achieve whatever you can and be happy. I'm very happy that Robb enjoys his career."

Arya snorted. "You're just saying that now. You're saying that because you want the family to go back to the way it was, before Dad fucked up my life. Well, Mom, you know what? I can't go back, because of what he did, and if that's why I don't fucking want to go back to school, then I'm freaking fine with that. I want to get away for a while. Besides, I can always come back if I want to. It's not like my credits will poof into nothing. If I _do _come back, though, I intend to transfer. To somewhere as bloody far away as possible."

"It's fortunate you should say that," Ned Stark said quietly from down the table, and, for the first time, Arya turned to him. Her father's face was dark, but his eyes were full of emotion, feelings she couldn't begin to identify. He raised both of his elbows onto the table, resting on either side of his plate. Meshing his fingers, he watched her over his hands, appraisingly. "You say you want to get away for a while? Good. I won't allow you to drop out of college, not after starting. You're not a quitter, and I won't let you start now. I may permit a transfer to another university, but we'll talk about that later. In reference to your wanting to be a scout..." He waved lazily towards Catelyn, encompassing the conversation she had had with their daughter. "...I think you'll definitely regret if you leave your course now. But I'd like to help you along your way."

She had never accepted help from her father, not names to put her in touch with nor possible internships that people in the scouting business held vacant. She opened her mouth to tell him that she wouldn't accept any now—_especially_ after what he had done to her and Gendry—but he, too, like her mother, kept talking, not allowing her to sneak a word in between his.

"It's not much help, so don't tell me I shouldn't give it to you. I've arranged for an overseas trip for you and one of my scouts. He can look after you, take you with him to see prospects, make some pointers that perhaps you haven't picked up yet. It will last two weeks, which will take you all the way up to your move-in day at King's Landing." His eyes grew darker, and his head dipped a little more behind the steeple of his hands. "And it will allow you to get your mind off of less pleasant things."

Arya glared at him, trying to process what he had said to her. It was the kind of thing she had always dreamed about doing, the kind of thing that she actually would have accepted from her father under normal circumstances. Overseas trips were long and grueling, but could turn up some surprisingly sneaky prospects, some real diamonds in the rough. Arya wasn't sure whether she had aimed for being a mainland scout or an overseas scout, but the trip her father had just proposed gave her the opportunity to go out and observe real prospects, real prospects that weren't throwing backalley baseball in King's Landing when she stumbled upon them. It was the kind of thing she had always wanted, always dreamed of, a solid stepping stone that would look good on a résumé, the opportunity to show someone who wasn't her father or Luwin that she actually knew what she was talking about when she looked at someone play baseball. She couldn't believe that her father was offering it now, and she especially couldn't believe that she had absolutely no desire to go.

"I don't want to," she heard herself say quietly. She jumped as she realized she had spoken, and then, louder, repeated, "I don't want to go."

Ned Stark watched her, long and hard. Not a glare. Just a watch. "You don't want to go. I can't say I understand why you don't want to go."

"I don't want to go, okay?" Arya repeated, shoving off from the table and crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "I don't feel like going overseas, not right now. I don't want to do it."

"Well, you feel that way now, but I'm sure once you get there you'll—"

"Oh, don't you fucking _dare_!" Arya exclaimed. In the space of a moment, she had lurched forward so that now she was on the edge of her seat, glaring at her father, the edge of the table clamped in both of her hands. "Don't you dare assume you know how I feel! You—_you_—have _no _clue what is going through my head, ever! You still don't realize that you made him break my heart, and you still don't understand that I _hate _you for it!"

"Enough!"

Ned Stark never shouted at his children. The exceptions were when they put themselves in harm's way. This was not an exception, and the reaction throughout the family as he slapped both palms against the table was shocked. Sansa actually released a short scream and Rickon cried out in alarm. Bran dropped the spoonful of mashed potatoes he'd been holding, which bounced perilously close to falling off of the table. Robb jumped and stared slack-jawed at their father. Catelyn started, as well, and her husband's whispered name slipped from her surprised lips.

But Ned Stark didn't stop. He glared at Arya in anger, this time. "I have had enough sulking, enough disgust, enough disrespect from you! I understand that you don't like what I did and I'm willing to live with it, but I did it for your own good and _you _need to move along! I still want you to have everything you want, and I'm trying to help you do it, but, by the gods, I can't do it without you trying to help yourself, too." He jabbed a finger hard into the table, emphasizing each word. "So you're going to go to Braavos for those two weeks, and then you're going to come back to King's Landing. That is final. There is no argument about it."

She would have fought in any other situation. She was used to fighting. Middle school, high school, Sansa... Gendry. But she was tired of fighting, now. Fighting lost its appeal when it was done day and night, with one's own soul, and she didn't have any resolve to fight Ned Stark now. It felt like there was nothing left. It felt like there was nothing of Arya left. She was no one, now.

So, to her horror, as tears began to form in her eyes, she bowed her head to hide them from her family, the family still glaring up at Ned Stark with wide eyes and horrified expressions, and tried to cry into her lap as quietly as possible.

Then something very unexpected happened.

"I cannot believe you."

For the second time that night, the room completely froze. Arya dared to look up at Sansa, who, along with Bran and Rickon, had turned their surprised eyes on Robb. The youngest Stark daughter and Catelyn both turned to face the eldest Stark child at the same moment, to find him staring hard at his father, who actually looked taken aback by the simple statement from his son. There was nothing of Tully brilliance in Robb's expression now; it was all Stark ice, born from the midnight of winter.

"I can't believe you at all," Robb reiterated, staring at their father without flinching in the slightest. Ned looked back with a mixture of shock and frustration, but Robb didn't give him a chance to breathe. "You're the most honorable, fair, justifiable man I have ever met. You give everyone their fair chance. You don't judge anyone based on their appearance, only their actions. You give people second chances, you forgive and allow others to regain your bloody trust. You've never let any of your children down, not when we were sick or tired or hungry or lonely or scared. You have _always _been there for us, from the minute we were born to now. What in the world have you done? _How _could you do this to Arya, Dad? How in the fucking world could you orchestrate your daughter's heartbreak, and demand something of her after you've taken away her love?"

Arya couldn't believe what was happening. A quick glance about showed her mutual reactions in her siblings. Bran was staring at his older brother with unconcealed delight, while Rickon looked as though the sky was falling. Sansa's mouth was clamped shut, but her eyes were wider than Arya's. Catelyn looked both surprised and sad, as if she knew what she was seeing and hated to keep watching it.

Several moments later, Ned Stark managed to suck in enough breath to say, in a much flustered state, "I'm your father. You don't have the right to tell me what I did was wrong. I did it _for _Arya, to protect her."

"Yeah, we've all heard that bull shit," Robb deadpanned, waving a hand to blow Ned's words away. "You want to know what I saw, Dad, when I suspected what she was doing? I saw her smile every day, I saw her laugh. I saw my sister actually _happy_, Dad, like I've never seen before and I'm sure you've never seen before. And, you know what? She wasn't the only one that was happy. Gendry was just as happy as her. They were happy together. _Because _of each other. You know what I see now, Dad? The only one I've seen hurt her—" Robb raised a hand, brandishing a single finger, a deadly point. "—is you."

For a very long time—hours, it felt like—the eldest Stark and his eldest son stared at each other, the bubbling fury inside of their heads seeming near its tipping point. Ned Stark released a hissing breath, like the release of air pressure, and growled out, "Rickon. Go."

The youngest Stark jumped, surprised at being addressed. "But I haven't hardly eaten anything yet—"

"Just go."

"Dad," Bran began. His face was lit up like he was watching the World Series. "You can't just tell him to—"

"Bran," Ned Stark barked, actually turning a searing eye on his two youngest sons. The words were spat through gritted teeth as unveiled warnings. "Go."

Both Bran's and Rickon's mouths snapped shut, and Rickon hopped down promptly from his chair as Bran swiveled away from the table. It was nearly a race to the door, which Rickon barely won. A moment later, the only people at the table were Sansa, Arya, Catelyn—all three in prolonged states of disbelief—and the two squared-off Stark men.

Ned Stark turned back to Robb, and sighed again. His voice was low once again, but strained. "Maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but I've been down this road before, watched people go down this road before, and I guarantee you that at the end it would have been over just as badly."

"Oh, whatever," Robb groaned, shrugging his shoulders and waving off the statements. "I've heard a million people say that before. You know what happens next? They're proved wrong. So what have you seen? I saw them, too, Dad, and they looked pretty damn good together, to me. You've got your protective thing on, fine, whatever. It didn't give you the right to hang an ultimatum over Gendry's head, and it certainly didn't make it okay to break your daughter's heart for him."

"It would have happened eventually," Ned Stark growled, avoiding Arya's accusatory, agreeing look. "He would have hurt her in the end. Or worse."

"So what?" Robb cried, raising his hands into the air. "It happens, okay? Heartbreak happens. I should know! But if that's what they were destined for—which, by the way, I don't think was going to happen—then they should have been allowed to reach that stage _by themselves_! They shouldn't have been shown that they were wrong for each other, if that's what they are, they should have been able to realize it for themselves, in their own time! And you know what, Dad? We'll never know, now. We'll never know if Gendry would've hurt Arya or not, or if they were going to be in love until the end of time, because _you _ruined it. And if Arya hates you for that, then gods damn it, I don't blame her."

Ned Stark looked as though his oldest son had punched him, slapped him, and then stabbed him. "I didn't want to do it. It had to be done."

"Looks like you're the only one that sees it that way," Robb blasted, shrugging and shaking his head. "I just don't get it, Pops. You've never been that way with any of us before. You let Sansa date fucking Joffrey Baratheon, the loudest, slimiest asshole in the world. You let _me _drop a girl who was kind and considerate on the spot for someone I'd just met, someone I'd _cheated _on somebody with, and you never even _judged _me on it. And you know what else, Dad? That girl I cheated with and I are getting married. Me and Jeyne are going to get married! I'm engaged!"

His confession, the revealing of his secret, was met with an abrupt, unexpected silence. The two men continued to stare at each other, while Sansa and Catelyn both gasped softly. Arya was so stunned by the night's events that a new surprise didn't even effect her. It was a happy exclamation, one she found actually brought her a meager moment of joy, a meager amount of happiness for her brother. In the somber mood of the setting, however, it seemed almost cruel.

"That's... that's great, Robb," Catelyn sighed. Arya assumed her grimace was supposed to be a smile. "How long has that been in the works?"

"I asked her last week," Robb replied, turning to watch the tablecloth. "I was trying to figure out the right time to tell you."

Ned Stark raised a hand to knead his temple, a universal sign that the situation could only get worse. "You barely know her, Robb. You've known her for only a few months. In strained circumstances."

"Yes, Dad," Robb growled. "But she makes me happy. And I'm going to seize it while I can, damn it, do you understand?"

"I'm just saying that this seems all a little quick—"

"I don't give a _damn _what it _seems_ like to you," Robb spat, and abruptly pushed away from the table, leaving his plate largely filled on the table. Standing, he glared down at his father and added, with a gesture in Arya's direction, "I can see what that seemed like, and, as far as I'm concerned, you were dead wrong and, worse, you can't even admit your mistake to yourself to try and fix it. And now you compound it by forcing her to go somewhere she doesn't want to go. I just don't get it. If you've got a problem with me, then we won't send you a wedding invitation. Enjoy your freaking family dinner, Dad."

Under the eyes of his two sisters and both of his parents, Robb spun and marched out of the room, with his head held high. Arya and Sansa watched him go in shock. Catelyn stared at Ned, who glared furiously at his son's back until Robb was out of sight. The room remained still and silent as they listened to his footfalls, all the way across the sitting room and foyer before the front door creaked open and slammed shut.

After, no one seemed to want to make the first move. Arya was caught between a renewed sense of betrayal from her father and a surging gratitude for her brother, and thought that any attempt to break the silence on her behalf would either be an explosion or a breakdown. Either way, making the situation worse. All she wanted was to get out of the room, away from Ned Stark. All she wanted was to shed the strong exterior she'd always shown to the world, to stop having to be the unbreakable, untamable Stark. She wanted to curl up in Gendry's arms and forget about the world for a long time. A very long time.

When someone finally spoke, it was the second time she falsely predicted who it would be.

"Well, I think Robb put it the best for all of us," Sansa said, making eye contact with their father, albeit out of the corner of her eye.

Ned Stark—very slowly—turned his eye up and swung it to face his eldest daughter, neither angrily nor sympathetically. "I don't want to infringe on any of my children's happiness. On the contrary, all I want is for you to be happy. But I need you to be safe, too."

"Oh, bull shit, Father," Sansa groaned, shaking her head in annoyance. Arya could have kissed her sister. "I can't believe you can tell yourself that and still sleep at night. Arya was happy, then you ruined it. Robb _is _happy, and you try to throw a monkeywrench into that. I was happy, and when I tell you who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, you judge him based on everything you've heard about him from everyone else, not from _me_. I don't understand this. Your family is already becoming divided. Robb has stayed close to home, but Arya and I are far away and not likely to come back. Arya especially, after what's happened. Bran wants to go over the _Wall_ for college. Jon's already at the Wall. Who knows what Rickon will do? Why are you pushing your family away, Father?"

Once again, it took their father several attempts to muster a response. "You all treat me like a villain, but I'm trying to do what's best for everybody. I can't fathom why you didn't tell me straight away about Joffrey hitting you, but I certainly didn't need to hear that you had turned to someone else who you barely knew _and _your sister _months _before you told me. How else can I keep you safe but acting on my instincts when you won't even tell you when someone is _hitting _you, Sansa?"

Sansa only shook her head. "All I know is that if you had found out about me and Sandor and done anything to jeopardize us like you have to Arya and Gendry, I would never speak with you again. I think it's a miracle that she can bear to be in the same room as you. And I absolutely would refuse to go on some trip that you had _arranged _for me and demanded I go on."

"That is not for you to decide."

"I guess not," Sansa said, but she, like Robb, pushed away from the table and stood. "I don't hate you, Father, but I resent you. You've disappointed me. And I don't begrudge Arya a bit of her anger towards you. If it were me, I would be taking it far worse than she."

Ned Stark actually reached out a hand as his eldest daughter turned her back on the table and walked out of the room, but he couldn't make sounds come out of his mouth to actually pull her back. Once she was gone, he lowered his hand to his side, eyes glaring off into space, while Catelyn anxiously rearranged her silverware and glanced with dismay about the food she had carefully prepared, going cold and uneaten around the table in the ensuing disaster of their family dinner. Arya herself didn't know what to do; it didn't feel right, in her pained and angry state, to look at either of her parents, so, instead, she looked at nothing at all.

At length, Ned Stark raised both of his hands and set them on the table, glaring hard at his plate, as if it was all the fault of the pasta. "Arya..." He paused. For the briefest of moments, Arya dared hope that he was beginning to offer an apology, that he was going to reconcile and take back everything he had insisted upon, take back every insistence he had. "You... do not have to go to Braavos... if you don't want to. You would probably like to spend the time preparing for the return to college, anyway."

For a heart that had already been shattered, hers plummeted once again. Light tears sprang into her eyes as she slid her chair backwards, rising on shaking legs. She forced herself to look at Ned Stark, forced herself to look him right in the eye. "I'll go on your fucking goddamn trip. As long as you promise me that once I get back, you'll leave me alone forever."

Raw shock and pain appeared in her father's eyes, and she was _glad _they were there: nothing of his hurt could ever compare to hers. Without waiting for a reply, she made to follow all four of her siblings out of the room, up to her bed, where she could curl up and try to forget, where her father and mother could never touch her again. Where maybe she could still dream of _him_.

Her mother called her name as she left the room, but she didn't turn back. It didn't feel like her name anymore, anyways, didn't feel like her life, didn't feel like her soul. She was No One, now.


	23. Chapter 22

**This is a re-posting. I was not satisfied with the back half of this chapter or its response, so I re-wrote a piece of it.**

**22**

"Are you all right?"

Gendry peered up from the newspaper he was reading. The newspaper he was staring at. "Yeah. Why?"

Robb glared at him oddly as he set two bowls of cereal down at the kitchen table. Gendry hadn't asked for one and Robb hadn't offered, but the reliever's grumbling stomach reminded him that throwing two nights in a row made missing meals unallowable, even if the meal consisted only of cereal. He set the newspaper down to take hold of the bowl, as Robb murmured, "I don't know. People can react strangely during their first playoff trip. I just want to make sure..."

Glancing up from the cereal, which tasted stale even though he knew it was right out of the box, Gendry found his friend clearly struggling to find words. Or, more likely, struggling to find the correct words. Gendry leaned back in his chair and sighed. "You've never doubted me, not once in two months. You're going to start now?"

"I'm not doubting you," Robb said quickly, shaking his head. "Not at all. This is completely my concern for you. And I'm not even the only one, _Jeyne's _worried about you, too."

Gendry grunted staring at his bowl. "At least I'm not offended by that one."

Robb had finally brought his fiancé to the apartment, after breaking it to Gendry that he was getting married. From his uneasy approach to the situation, it seemed that Robb thought that becoming engaged would somehow offend Gendry, but Gendry couldn't understand the logic behind his captain's thinking, in that instance. Jeyne Westerling was a pretty girl, shy until she started to get to know you, and then motherly and frantic once she lost her diffidence. Gendry was happy for Robb, but had begun to have his doubts about a personal friendship with the girl; when she had somehow gotten wind of what had occurred between Gendry and various members of the Stark family, she was completely understanding—too understanding—and insisted on treating Gendry like a war veteran. Setting aside the fact that he irrationally felt like he was fighting his own war with himself every day, Gendry found the attention and doting rather cumbersome and pitiful.

Two months seemed like enough time to kill some pain, he had presumed, but August came and went, September came and went, and yet he still woke up in the morning, tangled in his bed sheets, covered with a thin sheen of sweat as he stared helplessly at the ceiling wondering when his heart would mend. He should have been happy, he knew. The Direwolves' success hadn't plummeted with his mood, contrary to its rise with his boom. Their lead in the division had held throughout the last two months of the year, lengthening to an actual nine games over the trailing Mermen of White Harbor. Gendry had blown only one more save in the close of the regular season, a day game where three lucky bloop hits had spelled the Direwolves' demise. Aside from the single occasion, however, even he had managed to continue to excel, against all odds; hitters could touch him no better than they could when he had first been called up to the major leagues. He had finished with thirty-two regular season saves out of thirty four attempts, holding a record of no wins with a loss, but also an earned-run-average that skittered below two. Against all odds, against his pain and self-loathing and distaste, Gendry Waters, orphan boy of King's Landing, had managed to turn out one of the best rookie pitching seasons. Ever.

The morning had dawned interestingly. Gendry knew that downtown in the Great Keep that day, the Casterly Rock Lions and the Mountain That Swings were waiting, champions of the National League South, itching for revenge. Gendry could remember the murder in Gregor Clegane's eyes after his strikeout, the promise of retribution. The playoffs began today, the Direwolves facing an opponent for the right to advance to the National League Championship Series. His first trip to the playoffs ever, in a year of constant firsts—first game, first love, first heartbreak—and Gendry knew he should have been nervous or anxious or excited. Yet he was none of those things. It was as though he hadn't quite realized what was about to happen, what he was about to play for.

"Well," Robb said, rubbing the back of his neck, the slightest shine of frustration squeaking through his expression. "I'm seriously worried, Gendry, worried about my friend. I have been this whole time, but now... now things are cooking up and I just want to make sure that you're not secretly crying yourself to sleep or anything."

It had been an exhausting effort, but he had managed not to shed a single tear since that stormy day outside of the Great Keep. "Never fear. I'm still as rock solid as always." He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Seriously, Robb, have I lost it yet? I'm not going to."

"So you're moving on," Robb replied, phrasing it not quite as a question.

"Yes," Gendry mumbled. He turned his eyes from Robb immediately, both of them knowing quite well how untrue his answer was. "It's not easy."

The conversation was mildly awkward, probably one of the reasons they had never had it before: Gendry could not simply come out straight and tell Robb how amazing his sister was without crossing a strange line, and Robb could not empathize completely with Gendry without Gendry sharing his full emotional field. Therefore, they were more or less stuck at an impasse that had gone unspoken until Robb brought it up over their cereal.

"I understand," Robb said. Gendry looked up to contradict him, to inform the captain just how much he didn't understand, but before the chance arose Robb pressed on. "I haven't gone through what you have, I know, but I know it's a really difficult time and people react in different ways. I'm just... this isn't your team captain here, Gendry. This is Robb Stark, as your friend, saying that I haven't really seen you deal with it at all. I've heard you wake up in the middle of the night, I've watched you grit your teeth and press on, but I've never actually seen you face your problem and battle with it. So, considering the stress that may or may not be about to be thrown onto your shoulders, I want to know if you're okay, if you can deal with it, or if you need my help. Because I'm right here, willing to give it."

Gendry regarded his friend for a long moment, trying to decide if he was really as messed up as Robb implied and simply didn't realize it, before finally shaking his head. "I appreciate it. But I don't think I'm going to suddenly break down. I made it this far. I might as well push through to the end and worry about what comes when it comes."

For the space of several seconds, Robb worked his jaw and looked half as though he would insist on a better answer from Gendry. He went so far as to open his mouth, but, finally, with a sigh, he said, "Fine. With that aside, as your captain, I expect you to be focused and prepared come the time that you're called upon today, or tomorrow, or whenever in this series. Winterfell hasn't been to the playoffs in three years, and we haven't won a playoff series since my dad played for them. This is a big opportunity for all of us, you included. I want you to be ready for it."

"I'm ready," Gendry said. A brief moment allowed him to forget all of his current pain, allowed him to catch a memory's glimpse of a boy large for his age, picking a baseball mitt out of the bottom of the closet, dreaming of greatness for the first time and meeting nothing but dissatisfaction. Returned to the moment, fresh with his new pain, Gendry shook his head at himself. _Not this time. Not anymore_. "I've been ready for a very long time."

Robb peered at him before nodding slowly. They finished their breakfast in silence.

The game that night was vicious, a true playoff game. By the better regular season record, the Direwolves had secured home-field advantage for the series, playing the first two games of the best-of-5 series in Winterfell. As had been much the norm for the closing months of the season, the Great Keep sold out. Beneath the lights, the sun already set in the late year playoff game, the crowd was roaring, cheering, blaring their support for their team. Even in the bullpen, the energy pulsing from the dugout and his team inspired Gendry, irked him every slightly from his numb state, enough that a desire to pitch stirred in him, a desire akin to what he had felt the very first time he had picked up a baseball, the very first time he had been called in to pitch a major league game.

The Lions came out, pun quite intended, with a roar. On a chilly October night in Winterfell, four visitor runs crossed the plate in the first inning, two of them on an earth-shattering line drive single by the Mountain. The crowd deflated marginally in wake of the boom, but not completely, and the Direwolves managed to post a run in both the first and second innings, bringing them back within a deficit that could be overcome. In the fourth, the Lions loaded the bases with nobody out, but the starting pitcher, whilst the bullpen was in early activity, managed to reach back and strike out the ensuing hitter. Then, with the Mountain standing on-deck, the next batter lined a pitch straight to Hallis at shortstop, who shoveled quickly to second base for a rally-ending double play. On the third pitch of the next inning, Mikken sent a fastball four hundred and thirty feet to center field for a home run, bringing the Direwolves within one run going into the fifth.

The game still hung in the balance up to the bottom of the eighth, with the Direwolves trailing by a run. Two batters reached base for Robb, a tense situation for the Lions, and during a mound visit Gendry was ordered up to stretch just in case the Direwolves managed to take the lead. As if by cue, Robb took an 0-1 slider and drove it the opposite way, striking it off the right-center wall and rolling deeper into the gap. Edric scored all the way from first base behind the runner on second, and all of a sudden the Direwolves were up by one run heading into the ninth. A save situation, which Gendry had been prepared for.

He had never found the Great Keep quite so loud as it was when he left the bullpen for the top of the ninth inning. Forty thousand people stood on their feet and cheered him on, cheered him towards a playoff victory Winterfell wanted quite badly. It was a baseball town, a baseball community, and forty thousand baseball fans rose to their full heights and screamed him on, their star rookie, their unlikely hero. That, interestingly enough, was almost enough to drive him to tears, but he had pitches to throw, and after coming so far the mound of a playoff game was nowhere to lose one's composure, so he kicked himself in the rear and swallowed all of his pain and pride and awe, focusing instead on the stitched white orb he picked up for the fiftieth time that season on the mound.

In all honesty that he could admit to himself, he wasn't sure how he threw the inning, because he didn't remember much of it afterwards. He could remember watching the batters step into the box, could remember shaking off a slider sign for straight heat more than once. Other than that, it was more or less a blur, and he wasn't sure if it was his adrenaline and emotion catching up with him or if he just blanked for a few minutes. The next thing he knew, Robb was high-fiving him on the mound after he struck out the side on eleven pitches, the Mountain watching safely—for Gendry—from the dugout.

"That's how we start the playoffs," Robb muttered enthusiastically later that night, as he pulled into the apartment complex garage. Gendry had taken to riding with his roommate to and from games in the past few weeks, as Winterfell's weather dropped drastically towards the winter that was coming. Lately, anyway—ever since his encounter with the reporter and the business card, and the voices in his memory, actually—he had found it surprisingly anguishing to ride his motorcycle anyway. That was because of memories, too.

"A good win," Gendry replied quietly. He actually managed to put a hint of pride and accomplishment behind the note.

Robb switched off the engine, and reached for the door handle, but hesitated when he noticed that Gendry did not do the same. The series of actions made it clear exactly what was coming, and, having no desire to engage in such actions, Gendry belatedly reached for the handle to make a strategic exit from the vehicle where his mind had been clouded before.

His hand was only halfway to the handle when Robb's voice cut off his motion. "She's no better than you, you know."

Gendry froze, staring straight at the door, his arm outstretched and as still as if he was a statue. The words seared into him, a stab, a refreshing wave, locking his body up for a very long moment. Several seconds later, he gulped, carefully lowering his hand to rest in his lap. Looking anywhere but at Robb, he tried to collect his thoughts, but they were dancing—not a waltz of triumph, but a soft serenade, a requiem of conglomerated grief. There was no need to ask for clarification, to wonder what Robb meant. The implication—the meaning—was as clear as a cloudless sky. And it hurt him more than his own heartbreak could.

"How do you know that?" he eventually choked out, marginally without making it seem as though he was choking it out.

Robb grunted softly. "You'd know it instantly, if you saw her, because you know her so well." Gendry glanced up, in surprise. Robb simply shrugged, as if to insinuate that Gendry understanding his sister was common knowledge, and went on, "She tries to be fierce, like she used to be. Like she used to be before she met you. _After _she met you... well, she was still fierce, but she smiled a lot more. A _lot _more, and that's me telling you, with me hardly ever seeing her, really. And when she went to Braavos—"

"She went to Braavos?" Gendry cut in, sharply. That was... unexpected. "Why did she do that?"

"Dad made her," his friend answered carefully. "A scouting trip, supposedly, for her career. That was... that was kind of a scene, actually, when he told her about it. I think the whole family was mad at him, and we all kind of took it out on him. I did, big time, more than I've ever _dared _to say to him before. I'm still not sure he's forgiven me. But Arya... she was really bad, man. She'd almost given up, I think, which is something I never thought she'd do. She's really starting to hate Dad, I think. She told him that she would go on the condition—"

"Actually," Gendry said, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to break down, "I don't even want to know, man." He didn't want to hear about Arya. He didn't want to remember. He wanted to forget, forget that day in the rain when he'd walked away. "I don't need to know. I would go back if I could, but I can't, and your father absolutely won't—"

"I'm getting married," Robb interjected in turn, not quite forcefully but with a captain's air about him. "And I love baseball, and I love playing, and I love my fiancé, and I've discovered that, between not living with her, not taking her on the road, being busy almost every day with my professional career, it's a little difficult to find a balance between the two sometime. I know I have to find it, though, because I want both, and I'm going to have both. So I'm going to find a way."

Gendry shook his head, exhaling through his nose, leaning back against the headrest. "It's not the same. You're Robb Stark. I'm Gendry Waters. We come from, literally, opposite ends of the scale. No, look," he added as Robb began to protest. He swiveled in his car seat to more directly face his friend. "I have the utmost respect for you, Robb. As a player, as a captain, as a teammate, I couldn't ask for a friend better than you. I dated your sister behind your back and you fucking stood by me. I don't know if I understand that. But, straight up, you had a path carved for you from birth, and even though it was uphill, you had a trail to go by. I had nothing. I had wilderness above me and a mountaintop a while away. By one lucky coincidence, I got picked up and dropped halfway up the mountain, and I have fought hard to make it the rest of the way."

He sighed, knocking his head against the seat once before opening his door a bit harder than he probably should have. He stepped out of the car, mostly for the relief of the air, but when Robb followed him Gendry continued, "This is the playoffs. You said it. I'm _this _close to the top of my mountain—" He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "—but I'm hurting bad. There's nothing I can do to stop that, okay? I'm really sorry if Arya's as messed up as me, and I'm really sorry that I can't fix things, because I would spend the rest of my life with your sister, Robb, I swear to you, I would. But it wasn't up to me, and it still isn't. See your father about it."

"My father shouldn't stand between you."

It was a murmur, but it sounded large, and Gendry felt it like a hammer to the chest. _No. A hammer to the elbow_. And that was the card that Robb didn't know Ned Stark held, had held unknowingly since he signed Gendry, a card Gendry never would have believed for a moment that Ned Stark would hold hostage over his head before it was played. _And that's it, Robb. Your father can stand between us, and he is, because he controls my life, and he knows it._

He didn't say it out loud, though, facing Robb in the small, dim garage. His captain almost looked hurt, himself, but Gendry still didn't want his best friend to know what his arm had truly cost him. So, instead, he turned away and left the garage, arriving at their apartment before Robb and disappearing into his room. When he emerged in the morning, it was their normal morning routine, and there was another playoff game to play, and, by silent agreement, they never spoke about Arya, again. Gendry was glad; he didn't know if he'd be able to hold himself together any longer if they did.

The Lions didn't go quietly in the Division Series.

In Game 2, Jory got rocked. It was incredibly uncustomary for the usually stoic and solid pitcher; usually, if he gave up a few runs in an inning, he could batten down the hatches and pull his game together enough to hold the hitters at bay. On this day, however, the Lions crossed another four runners in the first and then followed up with three more in the second, at which time a shocked Winterfell crowd watched Luwin pull his ailing starting pitcher. The Mountain hit the first pitch he saw, an outside changeup that he should never have been able to pull, for a round tripper to left field. By the end of the day, while Gendry watched grimly from the bullpen, the Direwolves had suffered a ten to three loss to even up the series at one game apiece, with a road trip to Casterly Rock in their future.

Luwin didn't know what to say postgame, which was another rarity. Robb didn't, either, nor did he on the plane to Lannisport the next day, or once they had actually arrived two days later, except that they had two options: to bounce back or to lay down.

That was how he opened up in the locker room before Game 3 in Casterly Rock. Gendry could all but feel the crowd pulsing above his head, in stands that weren't even half full an hour before gametime. The memory of the last time he had visited Casterly Rock, the crowd's animosity, his first big league save, wasn't quite as fresh as he had hoped. The Direwolves had to take at least one game in Casterly Rock, to force the series back to Winterfell for Game 5 and the series win. More likely than not, that game would come onto his shoulders. His responsibility. Although, the way Robb put it, it was everyone else's responsibility to put that burden on his shoulders.

"This is it," their captain told them. It was a silent locker room, full of grim faces. Even Edric was quiet. "We have three games. We need two wins. Two wins to do something Winterfell hasn't had in a decade. Two wins to get us one step closer to the World Series. This is the playoffs. This is what we need. This is our shot at greatness! Not a single one us has had this chance before, not one of us might ever get this chance again!" He jabbed a finger at Gendry, without looking. "We're here because of him!" He jabbed a finger at Edric. "We're here because of him!" Jory. Mikken. Hallis. Cayn. "And him! Him! Him! Him! Him! We're all here because of each other! We don't have a fucking Mountain Who Swings! We don't have a Rhaegar Targaryen! We don't have _one _player, we have a ton of them, and we're here because of every one of them! Now, who's going to be the one that steps up? Who's going to be the one who pushes us to the edge, who pushes us to the promised land? Who is going to get us to where we need to go? You!" Gendry. "You!" Edric. "You! You! You're going to push us there, because that is what we are! We are a team, we are the motherfucking Direwolves, and we are holding this ground for Winterfell. Tonight!"

Gendry stood up and cheered with the rest of his team as Robb slapped his men on the arms and led them out into the dugout, into enemy territory, where the Lions were circling like sharks in the water, smelling a kill. The atmosphere was lethal, but, despite everything, Robb's words wove a shield between Gendry and everything, turning his anguish into fury, and, as he sat in the bullpen waiting for Game 3 of the National League Division Series to begin, Gendry stewed silently, praying for a save situation, begging for the Mountain That Swings to come to the plate and challenge him one more time.

He wasn't needed. The Casterly Rock crowd, all fifty thousand of them, were silenced that night. Only two Lions reached base all day, both second inning two-out hits that were stranded at first and second, respectively. On the Direwolves' side, Mikken and Hallis both had three hits; Robb had four. Edric crossed the plate three times with a pair of walks and four stolen bases, and Cayn pitched both the eighth and ninth innings to lead Winterfell to an eleven to nothing victory in Game 3, after a seven-run loss two days before. Gendry did not throw, but all of a sudden the 'Wolves were up two games to one in the series, taking the game they needed in Casterly Rock, with another one the next day, and the hotel was electrified that night with excitement.

On the dawn of the day of Game 4, however, Gendry rose from his pristine inn bed knowing that the night would bring with it a fight to the death. He was prepared, but that left him no less anxious when the Lions entered the stadium that night knowing it was do or die for them. The crowd knew it, too; it was another packed house, and more than a half million fans in the area swarmed Lannisport and Casterly Rock that night knowing that their team was fighting for their playoff lives.

It began quietly; no hits in the first two innings. In the third, Hallis cracked an opposite field double with two outs but was stranded when Edric flew out to center. Gendry watched apprehensively, whispering silent prayers virtually every pitch. "One run, guys, one run. One run is all we need, just get me into the game..."

That was before the fourth inning. A bunt single allowed a Lion to reach base, and then the Mountain strode up to the plate. The at-bat was a battle, with breaking balls and fastballs fouled off in either direction for nearly a dozen pitches. Then, just when a full count had been reached, Gregor Clegane found a pitch he liked, and connected with a crack that clearly denoted a barrel shot. Gendry didn't even watch the ball fly; he heard it slam off of the scoreboard in center, heard the ricochet over the jubilant screams of the crowd, heard it over the groans of his teammates. The Mountain rounded the bases in ferocious victory, staring down every Direwolves infielder as he passed. They all looked away; Gendry couldn't blame them.

The inning ended with the next hitter, but Winterfell was blanked in the fifth. And then the sixth. And then the seventh. And then the eighth. Gendry was beginning to lose hope, beginning to resign himself to a game 5 in Winterfell as the Lions jogged out for the top of the ninth inning, nurturing a two-run lead with their series survival hanging in the balance.

The Direwolves' last hope rested with Mikken, first. The big outfielder faced off courageously against Gendry's counterpart on the Lions, fouling off a pair of pitches and taking two close breaking balls to face a two and two count. Then, on a low fastball, he caught the pitch off the end of his bat and broke the lumber, rolling a soft groundball to third base.

On his own the big man had no way of beating out the play...

...but the third baseman, on a routine play, bobbled the ball. Running as hard as he could—which wasn't very fast at all—Mikken beat the recovery throw by the third baseman by half a step, to the great chagrin of the watching crowd, who roared in shock and disapproval at what they saw. Mikken bent over down the first-base, partly, Gendry was sure, in shock of being safe, but the bullpen was comparable to the crowd in intensity as they cheered on the old outfielder.

Luwin immediately pulled Mikken for a pinch runner, a young September call-up named Turnip. The run didn't mean anything without one to follow it up, but it wouldn't do for the initial run to be gunned down on the bases, and Turnip was a fair bit faster than Mikken.

The game was still in the hands of the Lions, of course, by all means, but the next batter lined a second-pitch fastball into center field for a single before the pitcher's slot came up in the batting order. Gendry glanced towards the on-deck circle as Turnip maneuvered around second, anxious to see who Luwin would send up to the plate with nobody out and the tying runs on-base.

It was not who he had expected. The large man who hefted his sizable bat and trotted towards the plate had been there the entire season, sitting on the edge of the bench, high-fiving when people high-fived, cheering when people cheered, whispering his name when everyone else was deadly silent. Gendry actually climbed to his feet and took a step in the distant direction of the dugout, as if to demand Luwin explain to him exactly what was going on. In his mind, there should have been no reason why Hodor was marching to the plate at that moment. As far as Gendry could remember, he hadn't had a single at-bat all season—picked up in the Rule 5 draft the previous year, Hodor couldn't legally be sent down to the minor leagues or released, destined to ride the corner of a roster spot for the entire season. The large man certainly looked as though he packed a ton of power, but as far as Gendry had ever heard, the man had never said a word that wasn't his own name.

As Hodor strode into the batter's box, pausing for a moment in the wrong one as if in consideration before stepping to the correct side of the plate, Gendry looked frantically towards the dugout to assess Luwin's state of sanity, but the manager, as far as he could see, stood in his usual position in his usual stance, surveying the field with a calculating expression, giving off no air that sending Hodor to the plate was an error.

The rest of the bullpen was silent, their expressions confusedly mirroring Gendry's. Tensely, glancing up at the scoreboard, looking up at the crowd—which was as confused as they were—Gendry watched helplessly as the Lions' closer took his sign and came set. Hodor stood in the box, the bat raised in a clenched, compact stance. The man was nearly too large for the box it seemed, but if he swung a bat the way he spoke to his teammates, the Direwolves were doomed in the game, resigned to a journey back to Winterfell for Game 5.

The pitcher strode and threw at the plate. At that moment, inexplicably, the only thing that ran through Gendry's mind was, _Hodor_.

Hodor swung. Hodor connected. Gendry blinked, and then the ball was sailing into the right-center field gap, and the whole bullpen roared as they soared to their feet. Gendry was not the last one to do so.

The stadium groaned even as the Direwolves screamed, watching the baseball zipped across the outfield, brushing the tops of the turf as it slithered towards the wall. Turnip flew around the bases so quickly that his batting helmet flew off as he rounded third base, flying home en route to scoring the first run. Hodor was slightly more labored in running, but was still, past the exhausting effort to gasp his name, around first by the time Clegane seized the ball in the gap. Hodor may have been an easy out at second had Clegane heaved it there, but the tying run was rounding third, and it was a game the Lions couldn't lose. The Mountain hopped once and fired a cannon blast towards home plate, the runner bearing down on the catcher as the baseball skipped off of the pitcher's mound, hurtling towards the catcher's mitt as Hodor trotted into second.

The runner and the ball reached the plate at the exact same moment, and the catcher got railroaded. Gendry's breath caught in his throat for a short second, until he saw the ball careening through the air, falling off to one side, away from where the pitcher had backed up the plate. The umpire spread his arms in the safe sign, and the Direwolves dugout erupted at the same time as its bullpen did, at the same time as the crowd screamed in horror.

Hodor, glancing towards home plate as if he wasn't quite sure what was going on, took off towards third base only after every Direwolf mouth in the ballpark screamed at him to do so. The Lions rushed after the baseball, tossing it back to the first baseman covering home plate—the catcher still lay in the dirt after being run over, trying dazedly to climb back to his feet—but the damage had been done. Their lead was gone; there were no outs in the inning, and the winning run was standing ninety feet away, murmuring his name, half oblivious to the happy cries of his name that were coming from the Direwolves' dugout.

Gendry cheered along with his teammates, joining up with them, smiling, slapping them on their arms as they celebrated the tie game, against all odds, Hodor had just given them, a chance to close their series, a chance to seal their ticket to the next level of the playoffs. It wasn't done—they still had to score Hodor from third, but the top of the lineup was due up, and there were still no outs in the inning. Out in left field, Clegane looked angry enough to tear his massive glove in two.

The crowd was in full throat, again, jeering and booing. Whether it was their own pitcher they were exuding hate or for Hodor and the Direwolves, it couldn't be said. As Hallis stepped up to the plate, however, with the potential to drive the series-winning run to the plate, the bullpen coach placed the phone back on the receiver and called down the line of relievers, "Waters. You're up."

The bullpen froze, every face swiveling down the line, to where Gendry sat. Their eyes, every last one of them, fell onto him, reminding him of the feeling that had possessed him the previous night, the cold, singular desire to prove himself, to prove his team, to prove that he could take them where they had the potential to go. It surged inside of him once again, as his teammates turned to face him, looking up at him with expectations and hope. He was the rookie; he was one of, if not the, youngest of the bunch. Nevertheless, the way his teammates looked at him... it was with deference to leadership, with respect he wasn't sure he deserved, trust he knew he hadn't earned. But it was theirs to give, and his to accept. And there was no one else who was rising, to shoulder the burden of the game.

So he stood, shedding his jacket in one smooth motion, and picked up his glove to stretch himself out. Lead, deficit, sunshine or rain, Gendry Waters was going to enter the game.

Hallis struck out, on three pitches. Two fastballs he watched, clearly expecting something else, before a breaking ball that dipped into the dirt. Gendry could only look on dismay, between warm-up pitches, as the Direwolves' shortstop walked back to the dugout in resignation, his head dipped low to the ground. One out flicked onto the scoreboard, Hodor remained on third, looking incredibly out of place, and Gendry kept throwing, whispering a silent prayer. _Get that run in, Edric. Put the game into my hands. Give me one chance._

Edric was the picture of poise as he came to the plate with one out, as though he couldn't care less about what would occur at the plate. The Lions infield remained in, their cleats touching the grass, everyone on the balls of their feet, even between pitches. Gendry stopped warming up in the bullpen altogether as the midseason acquisition tapped the dirt off of his shoes and stared down the pitcher for a few moments, rocking slightly from side-to-side as he waited for the pitch.

It was a hard pause, watching in uncontrollable trepidation, waiting for the closer to come set and freeze, finally striding to the plate. Edric exercised patience, letting it fly by for strike one and stepping out of the box nonchalantly. The count was nothing to be concerned about, of course, in itself, but Gendry still shifted uncomfortably from foot-to-foot. As if to punish his anxiety, Edric swung at the next pitch, a high cutter, and popped it up on the infield.

Gendry, Cayn, Desmond, and a number of other relievers swore on the spot, watching the white orb climb high into the air, nearly as high as the rafters of the stadium. It's momentum declined as it accelerated inversely towards the earth, halting in midair and beginning a one-way plummet to the earth. The first baseman and second baseman converged on the pitcher's mound, the second baseman finally calling for it himself. As Edric rounded first base, running hard despite his dismal hit, and Hodor stood on third base watching the ball himself, the baseball was caught for the second out, and the go-ahead run remained ninety feet away from the plate.

The crowd cheered, having attained two outs after a horrible beginning, while Gendry heaved a pair of warm-up pitches at the bullpen catcher with venomous intensity. The fans could smell escape, Gendry knew, with Hodor potentially stranded on third after beating every odd in getting there in the first place. _Just one run_, Gendry begged. _Just one more fucking run._

He never should have doubted.

Robb stepped up to the plate. There was no heavy stance, no precarious pause, no determined stare-down, no delusional calm. The Direwolves captain walked to the plate, prepared himself, and drove the first pitch he saw on a line drive into center field for a base hit, allowing Hodor to rumble home with various murmurs of his name. While the bullpen exploded in a new burst of cheers around him, Gendry only released a relieved breath, glancing once at the sky, wondering if perhaps the baseball gods had, for once, answered his prayer. The next Direwolves hitter promptly flied out to left field, and then the inning was over and he had no more time to waste on prayers.

Down the steps, out the gate, out running across the outfield, drowning in the boos of the crowd, drinking in their displeasure like it was love, over the infield dirt, to the city on the hill that was his pitcher's mound.

As he had done half a hundred times before, he threw his eight warm-up pitches and watched the throw down go through. He took his cap into hand and stared in it for a moment, telling himself that this was his new moment, before placing it back on his head. The ball came back to him, and he turned towards the plate to make eye contact with Robb. The two brothers, connected in a friendship more similar than family and stronger than blood, exchanged a pair of nods that told each other that they were with each other until the bitter end. Then Robb reached up to pull his mask over his face, and Gendry stepped onto the pitcher's mound.

And they went to war.

Four hours later, after an hour of spraying champagne throughout the locker room, another hour spent in euphoria, an hour used trying to make themselves look presentable, and an hour wasted addressing the media, the Direwolves slowly made their way out of the visitors' clubhouse in Casterly Rock, still trying to come to terms with the fact that they had just won their first playoff series in a decade, that they were advancing to the National League Championship Series against an as yet undetermined opponent, on the heels of yet another save from their toted young rookie closer.

The celebration afterwards had been crazy; Robb had hugged him rather forcefully, the two of them sharing a moment of camaraderie before the infield tackled them. As the energy died down, however... as the moments of greatness died, the showers turned on, and the Direwolves continued to chat amiably while they washed off the sweat and dirt of the past accomplishments in light of the harder struggles of the future, Gendry found himself wanting. Wanting of one celebration he couldn't have, one smile he wanted to see more than anything.

He didn't want to think about her, but as he was hiding from the media, standing under water he had cranked cold, he thought about her a lot. He thought about what she would say, if she could see him, a poor orphan from King's Landing, closing games in professional playoff games. He thought about what she would do if he had a moment alone with her, a quiet second where it was just them, in the happiness of a playoff victory, in the solemn knowledge of struggles yet to come. He thought about how she would insult him, if she knew that he was as messed up as he was, his thoughts caught up in her after months of trying to vanquish his pain.

_Does she know? Does she know how much I want her to see me in this moment? Does she know how much I never want her to look at me again, so I can't hurt her anymore?_

She probably didn't. She probably ran as far away as she possibly could from the game of baseball. She was in King's Landing now, probably, somewhere that, without her popping into his life, he would be imprisoned, as well. He would wager his salary that she hadn't watched the game, or any game of the series. He doubted she had paid attention at all. Maybe she hated him by now. He cringed at himself, and shut off the water forcefully. _Good_, he hissed at himself. _It's better if she hates you. Hate is better than pain._

That was he told himself, at least. He passed through the press room, blankly answered questions that reporters threw at him, made his exit when it was socially acceptable for him to do so, and not a moment later. His teammates were still hyped, and he tried to pump himself up to their level, again, but it was too late. The temporary determination for greatness had abated, if not disappeared, and a pain he thought he had managed to tamp away scraped across his consciousness anew.

He finally managed to escape from his team, escape from the pressure of being happy, by slipping out, citing unbeatable exhaustion, and leaving the stadium quietly to try and find a bus back to their hotel. It was already the early hours of the morning; the team would fly back to Winterfell late the next day, and he, by no means, needed an early start. Nevertheless, he trudged out, wanting to be alone with his thoughts, as rough as they were, beginning to scan for an taxi as he skidded out of a side door onto the luxurious Casterly Rock streets.

The city was bright and brilliant, late as it was. Beautiful business towers tens of millions of dollars above his paygrade spanned the sky wherever he looked, flashing fantastic lights high into the air around. It disgusted him; it wasn't nearly as filthy as King's Landing, was Casterly Rock, but it was dirty in a different way. Dirtied by the scum that infested its wealthy halls and homes. It was not some place he could call home. He wasn't sure he could call any place home. Winterfell was the closest thing he had ever felt was home to him, but after what had happened... he didn't know if he could ever rest lightly in the city again. Besides, the community it belonged to was already perfect, a loving fan base of a beautiful setting that didn't need him. He didn't know where he could go, where in Westeros he could find a home, really. Everywhere held ruin for him now. Winterfell, in its majestic tragedy. King's Landing, in its horrifying memory. Even Casterly Rock, in its unblemished silence.

That was broken, all of a sudden, by a clap. And then another.

Gendry stopped walking, stopped scanning the sickeningly pristine streets for a taxi, turning slowly to face the sound of the clapping.

It was a man, leaning against a lamppost off to his left, a dark figure he hadn't noticed as he had passed, lost in his thoughts. As the man—little more than a boy, Gendry realized, with a youth more defined and shallow than Gendry's own—continued his slow clap, Gendry wondered how he had missed the man, actually; he wasn't that dark at all. Aside from his black jacket pulled over jeans, the light of the lamp reflected quite brightly off of the man's silver hair. His face showed a youth that couldn't yet have crossed twenty-five years, the body verifying the observation; his arms were slight, though he probably stood nearly as tall as Gendry himself, in a frame that was long and lean. His eyes sliced into Gendry, eyes of a purple so dark it was nearly black, and absolutely nothing held their attention except for the closer as he slowly swiveled to face the man. Gendry recognized him.

After a few more claps, the boy pushed off of the lamppost and took a step towards him. "Impressive. Very impressive. You're quite the pitcher, Gendry. I don't think I've ever faced anyone like you before."

"You still haven't," Gendry replied, trying not to growl.

The boy shrugged, taking another step forward lightly, lithely. "Not yet. But our paths will cross, sir, somewhere in this baseball world. Two dynamic players on two teams that don't seem beatable. We might as well admit that we're bound to clash and get it over with sooner rather than later." They were now close enough that if they both stretched out arms, their fingertips could have brushed. Gendry felt like he was at war. As if to corroborate the feeling, the boy's eyes glittered dangerously in the dimness of the night's shadow, like a dagger slid from a sheath. "My name is Aegon."

"I know who you are. It's nice to meet you." He held out a hand.

Aegon Targaryen stared at it for a moment, finally cocking his head to the side as if he was trying to decide what to do with it, before reaching it and clasping it gruffly, briefly. "I regret that our paths haven't crossed before. I've made something of a small study of you, ever since you broke it into the big leagues."

Glancing down at his hand as Aegon released it hanging in the dark, Gendry sighed loudly. He was too tired for this kind of talk. He took a step backwards, letting his hand fall to his side. "That's great, you know? But, honestly, I'm exhausted and it's been a trying week and I really want to get some sleep, right now, so, if you'll excuse me, maybe we can have this discussion another time..."

"Do you know where these playoffs are going, Gendry?"

Gendry paused, feeling his own eyes narrow in the darkness. "What's that?"

"Do you notice how this inevitable run for the World Series is bound to end?" Aegon said, spreading his hands as if to encompass the world. "I've never seen you pitch in-person before, and I had the night off, so I thought I would fly up to Casterly Rock to do a little scouting. I came here tonight, from King's Landing, specifically to watch Winterfell win. To watch you win, because I knew you would. Just like I, and the Monarchs, finished off the Flowers yesterday, to advance to the Westerosi League Championship Series."

Gendry vaguely recalled reading that in a newspaper, a paper he had really been too excited, at the time, to pay attention to. The Monarchs advancing, to play the victor of the Division Series between the Dreadfort Flayers and the Twin Towers. He also vaguely remembering seeing that Aegon Targaryen, the fantastical new rookie sensation, had connected for at least two hits in each of the three games that the Monarchs had used to sweep the Highgarden Flowers.

Aloud, now, though, he simply shrugged at the young hitter, trying to draw himself up as high as he could over the Monarch. "That's great. I still don't follow you."

Aegon glanced away casually, out towards Casterly Rock, over the towers of the city. "The Direwolves are unbeatable in your side of the league, and the Monarchs are, in mine. You know that. If you don't know that, you'll know it pretty quick when you go into the Championship Series. No team can beat you, except for us in King's Landing. We're going to meet in the World Series, you and I. That will be the setting for our showdown."

Gendry raised an eyebrow, wishing more than anything that he was in bed. And not alone. "Our showdown?"

"Yes, our showdown," Aegon repeated. For a second time, his eyes flashed dangerously. "Like our fathers before us, you and I will meet on the baseball field."

The closer, sure that he had heard wrong, blinked. "Excuse me?"

Aegon inhaled slowly, clasping his hands behind his back, surveying Gendry closely. "Robert Baratheon, your father. Rhaegar Targaryen, my father. Two baseball legends, two baseball greats who were unbeatable except by the other. Meeting on the highest level, for one purpose. To win. And not just the game."

At this point, Gendry scoffed, shaking his head. "All right, man. It sounds like you've spent a little too much time in the sun today, so I'm going to let you do you and I'm just going to catch a cab out of here—"

"My father," Aegon cut in, his voice licking the fringes of Gendry's with flames nearly visible, "didn't walk away from that showdown, Gendry." For the third time, Gendry felt genuinely threatened by the boy's eyes. "My father died. Your father killed him. You father won that competition. Your father was the better player in that generation. And now here we are, you and I, a pair of sons in the same place as our fathers were twenty years ago. Who's going to win this time?"

Gendry raised a hand and took another step back, using the other one to rub at his eyes. "Man, look... I don't know have any clue what you're talking about, okay? I'm not going to fight you, if that's what you're saying. I never knew my father, and I'm certainly not in any competition here. If it comes to facing you in the World Series, great, whatever, it's the playoffs, we'll see who the better team is. I've got nothing against you, okay? All I came to do is throw the ball and play a baseball game. No competition between you and me here."

"It's here, sir, whether you're willing to admit it or now," Aegon said, and took a step to follow Gendry. "It's between us right now, hanging like a foul beacon. It's clawing away at me. I'm surprised it isn't at you. You can't pretend it doesn't exist. We never had a choice. From the moment your father hit the ball that killed my father, I've been destined to cross paths with you, just like my father did with yours. You can't run away from it, Gendry. We're bound by blood. By ice and fire."

"I'm not fucking bound by anything," Gendry snarled, backing off, frantically glancing around for a taxi. All he wanted was to get away from the lunatic. "I am leaving now. I wish you the best of luck, and hope you don't get railed too hard when the Direwolves come to town."

This time, Aegon didn't take another step after him. Instead, the boy stopped completely, and something even chillier happened; the boy smiled, a mouth full of white teeth gleaming in the dim light of the street lamps. Gendry nearly—_nearly _—shivered. The voice that emanated from the boy was far worse than the smile, though. Convicted, deadly, and horrible. So much worse.

"Run from it if you like. You won't be able to in the end. We'll face each other, Gendry, hitter and pitcher, just like our fathers did before us. Robert Baratheon was the victor then. Rhaegar Targaryen lost." Horribly slow, the boy shook his head. "Not this time. I've waited my entire life for this, the chance to turn back the clock and begin anew what died with my father that day. This time, the Targaryen wins. This time, Gendry, I'm going to win, and take back the glory that was stolen from my family by your father. I hope you're prepared, because I'm coming. I'll see you in the World Series."

And like a wraith shrinking into hell, Aegon Targaryen turned his back. Gendry let him go, frozen to the spot, frozen by forces unseen, forces of confusion and potential and... fear. Dark clothing and silver hair disappeared into the shadows of the streets, leaving masked thoughts in their place, and the boy was gone.


	24. Chapter 23

**23**

Arya wasn't entirely sure how much she enjoyed her in time in Braavos until she was back in King's Landing. Then she found herself wishing she had never left that exotic, sultry overseas city of riches and ruin.

It wasn't a big baseball town, as far as those went; she would know, she'd grown up in one of the largest of the world. In the World Classic, the Braavosi team always managed to be competitive, but against the powerhouse players of the Westerosi clubs, there weren't many teams in the world that could stand a chance. When she left, she honestly wasn't sure how much there would be for her to do in Braavos, considering that it was a scouting mission and she hadn't heard any big names in the scouting reports from the region. Actually, once she was there, she wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do with herself, either, lost and dejected as she was. But she found things to do.

The name of the scout who she was to accompany was named Jaqen H'ghar, and he simultaneously came off as creepy and fascinating. When she met him for the first time in a White Harbor airport, he was harshly cold when they first shook hands, giving her the impression that it would be a trip where many irritated glares were sent his way and were received as indifferently as if her eyes were merely passing over him. He was a strange man, she could tell soon enough; his hair was two different colors per the side, one half white and the other red, a curious enough thing to make her question her father's sanity. As soon as they got onto the plane, however, Jaqen H'ghar leaned over to her with a smile and muttered, "A girl says nothing. No one hears, and friends may talk in secret, yes?"

She must have glared at him for a full minute before she nodded, not entirely sure if she was answering a question or confirming her own confusion to herself.

Whichever it was, Jaqen H'ghar settled back into his own seat and regarded her curiously. His drawl was subtly laced with the complicated grammar of a Braavosi accent. "A man is wondering. The owner calls me to make a journey, and tells me a girl will be accompanying. Such a request has never been made before. To what honor am I receiving you?"

"It's not of your business," Arya found herself snapping, before she could help herself, but even as she bit her lip Jaqen H'ghar tilted his head as though the answer amused him. Quickly, she added, "It wasn't by my choice. It's a favor, of sorts. Truth be told, I'm not actually looking forward to this."

"A girl has better things to do with her time?"

Her eyes narrowed. Jaqen's eyes danced; he seemed rather adept at being intrusive. "A man is being nosy."

"A man is being nosy," Jaqen agreed, and sat back to look out the plane's window at the runway, as if the conversation was over. Another near minute passed, her awkwardly trying to fathom a way to fill the silence with action, him pensively staring out of the window, before, as if the conversation had never lulled, he continued, "I like to be acquainted with all variables of my scouting missions before I take them. As of right now, you are an undefined variable."

Arya did not know what he meant by that, but she shrugged anyway. "What do you want to know?"

"What a man wants to know and what a man may know are two very different things," he said. He might have been talking to the window. "And what a girl divulges may be something else entirely. What will you tell me?"

"Nothing," Arya snapped instinctively. "I'm no one."

Jaqen smiled at the window, and shook his head slightly. "A girl is not no one. A girl has a name, the name given at her birth, and she runs from it. Why are you running, I wonder?"

She sat up straight in her airplane seat, instantly uncomfortable. Glaring at someone was much easier when they acknowledged that you were trying to do so. "I'm not running."

"A girl lies."

"A man should shut the fuck up."

He turned away from the window and examined her with careful eyes. Despite herself and her irritation with the situation, Arya felt herself shrink away from it. She didn't know why. Speaking carefully, Jaqen stated, "You have much to run from, I think, but you cannot decide whether to run or not. Is this the truth?"

"No," she lied. He would never believe it; she didn't believe it. The conversation was turning her mind to places she very much didn't want to think about, and it irked her that it had happened so quickly. _How can he tell that? Am I that incapable of controlling myself?_

"There is a darkness inside of your eyes," Jaqen commented. He reached out and brushed her chin with two fingers, tilting her face up. It surprised her so much that she went stock still, unable to look away from him as he surveyed her. The gesture wasn't intimate, nor did she want it to be; he was glancing over her as if he was considering a purchase. When he released her, he shook his head. "A darkness I see, but not the cause. The girl knows, though, and she knows why she runs."

With the retraction of his hand, she felt smaller, as though he had seen more than he was supposed to and gained unwelcome access to her consciousness. Sniffing, she muttered, "I run because I am good at it."

"Perhaps. But just because one is good at something does not mean that it should be done."

"If it shouldn't be done," she countered defiantly, "then why am I good at it?"

"The Red God gives skill and he takes it away," Jaqen told her with bright eyes. "It is not a man's place to question it. Or a girl's."

Arya resisted the urge to sigh. She was not altogether too familiar with the overseas religion revolving around a Red God, but she understood enough to not have a desire for any more of the basic attributes or scripture. "What am I doing on this trip?"

"Accompanying me, I was told," he replied, as if he didn't care what she did on the trip. "I have a list of people who are of interest to my employer." He eyed her carefully. "—who tells me you have a knack for the game and an eye for the ball."

Whether Ned Stark had said it or not, she was beginning to think Jaqen had just reassessed that ability in her wordlessly a few minutes prior. "I know the game."

"Then this is why you are coming to Braavos with me," Jaqen said. "Is it the reason you will come back, however, or does a girl have other things in mind for going and leaving?"

"What does that mean?"

"A man cannot say." She almost lost her cool and shouted at him, demanding a straight response, but he shrugged before she got the chance. "Perhaps a man is speaking in silence. But a girl who does not know her own name cannot possibly run from something the follows her name. So you either do not know you truly do not know your name, and you will not run, and perhaps find yourself anew in Braavos. Or you do know your name and refuse to admit it. And a girl with or without a name cannot run forever."

"What would you know of such things?"

He peered at her quizzically, as if her question was foolish. "A man has a name that he knows. And a girl one that she does."

Then he turned to look out of the window again, and did not alter his position for the duration of their takeoff or flight. Neither one of them spoke again for the next eight hours, until the plane's wheels had lightly touched down in Braavos and they disembarked. And once she was there, she actually... forgot. Everything fell away from her. She didn't how or why, and she wasn't thinking about it enough to even notice. Only in the depths of a single dream did she seem to remember the pain she was thrusting behind a concrete wall. She was clean of it by the time she awoke, and then there was Braavos.

A hundred islands composed the base of the city, from which towers of stone eighty feet high rose everywhere. The tallest building in the place must not have been more than ten stories, but each one was old and magnificent, as if it was a relic from the past pulled and placed right out of history itself. Arya did not expect herself to like it, when she first saw it, but the more time she spent in it... it was incredible. The streets were narrow—most didn't allow cars—and were always packed. Vendors and merchants set up stalls directly on the streets as if it were a massive farmer's market, shouting their wares and goods. Status of previous Sealords, the rulers of the city-state, lined the giant canals that led to the fishmarket, which Arya could have surveyed for hours. The two main harbors, grounds for commercial trade of the semi-formally dressed businessmen who walked down the streets—as often conducting their business jovially in-person as by cell phone—were operational and occupied twenty-four seven, as were both of the city's sizable commercial airports.

And the baseball.

There weren't many places in the city large enough to support a game. A park here and there had enough space to just jam in a field barely sizable enough, but three local universities had teams and fields, sandwiched in between campus buildings, and that was easily the place in Braavos that Arya loved most.

The short stone towers of the city lined the field in its entirety, casting somber shadows over the infield, but the atmosphere itself dispelled any gloom. In the first week, Jaqen took her to two games each at every college park, and she loved each game more than the last. The fans never failed to pack a game, and though she had struggles at time picking up the languages bouncing over her head like rubber balls, she caught enough to know that win or loss they were having just as good of a time just being near to the field, just being near to their players. Smiles were everywhere, even where fights broke out—and they often did—but overall the humid, unbearable air was just enough for Arya to find _something _to complain about in the midst of the entire trip. It was all she could do to remember that she actually wanted to watch the prospects.

Jaqen made no more prods at her; it seemed as though he had learned whatever he was after on the plane ride, and their conversation thereafter usually revolved around baseball. He continued to refer to them both in the third person at times, which rode to the verge of unnerving her, but when he did speak about baseball, she had no doubt that he knew more about the game than she. Which was not something anybody did every day. When he made notes, in a tiny notebook that he whisked from the pocket of the jacket he had no business wearing in the weather, he did so in a language she did not recognize, and so she could learn nothing by peering at them over his shoulder. On the occasion that he actually spoke, pointing something out to her indifferently, it was always something she hadn't noticed herself, a hitch of the hands, a false first step, a flinch or flicker of the eyes that anyone else may not have seen. Whoever Jaqen H'ghar was, he was an expert at the game, and was himself as sly as they came.

She wasn't sure where the two weeks went, but one morning she woke up in her solitary room in a very old hotel and it was the day she was destined to depart. Jaqen would not be returning with her; he had other business to conduct in Braavos, that he had not made privy to her despite her badgering, and he had slipped out himself the previous day. There was no long goodbye, simply a quiet wish that she make a good choice for herself—whatever that meant—and him slinking quietly out of the hotel.

Which left her to her own devices that morning.

And that was when Braavos failed her. In the dark, sitting up in bed, realizing that her incredible trip that she had never wanted to take had to come to an end, she did what she wanted more than anything not to do: she thought about Gendry.

His face, washed away by the weeks of exposure to the new place, flashed before her mind's eye and thundered like an inescapable drum. Her heart quickened, but it wasn't in excitement; panic began to set in. Before it could get out of control, she smothered it with deep breaths, forcing herself to remain calm. Even as she did so, though, dozens of memories rushed back to the forefront of her thoughts, and the last two weeks might as well not have happened. She was back at the dinner table with her parents, watching her brother and sister argue on her behalf and her father hold his ground on the only thing she had ever held against him. Her heart was still broken; what she thought had been healing had been masquerading as a band-aid, and now it had been ripped away to reveal a wound as fresh as the day it had been dealt.

For as long as she could spare, she lied in that bed, perilously close to tears of frustration. Many cries ago, she had run out of them for pain, but now Arya was simply becoming fed up with herself. _He's gone_, she barked. _There's no going back, you stupid girl. When are you going to learn that you have to get over him? When?_

It was pure effort for her to pack her things, compiling all of the stuff that had become strewn across her room over two weeks, with the bull-headed bastard bustling in the rear of her mind, forcing himself into her thoughts. Glancing out the window at the magnificent city didn't help at all; not only was it a reminder that she would be leaving it behind soon, but it also showed her that it had only been a facade... it was only a distraction, not a cure.

But when she climbed out of the taxi in front the airport, destined for a flight back to the faraway place she had once called her home, she paused. For one last time, she turned around to glance back over the city-state of Braavos, and ponder.

Jaqen's words returned to her. _So you either do not know you truly do not know your name, and you will not run, and perhaps find yourself anew in Braavos. Or you do know your name and refuse to admit it. And a girl with or without a name cannot run forever._

She _had _found herself anew in Braavos. Or, at least, she had thought she had. Yet, only one small thought concerning Winterfell had led her right to Gendry. She stamped her foot into the ground childishly but justifiably. Frustration didn't begin to describe her mood. She wanted to forget, she never wanted to forget, but she couldn't go on living like this. Every second felt like a fight just to make it to the next one, and it felt like it would never end. In the beginning, she dreaded the thought that it might never get better, but later on, when she had marginally better days, there was a slight hope that she would learn to live with her pain. Nearly a month later... there had to be some way, some way for her to recover.

_Truly do not know. _Did she know herself anymore? _Find yourself anew in Braavos_.

Her eyes traveled over the city, appreciating, considering. Had she truly forgotten who she was? Had she forgotten him? Had she forgotten herself? The city had a profound effect on her, one she didn't truly understand, but, for a time, it had been the remedy her heart if... what if she stayed? What if she didn't climb back onto the plane?

She bit her lip. There wasn't much money at her disposal; she didn't know if she would have anywhere to go. Braavos was vast; she could probably find some sort of employment somewhere... her parents would come looking, she was sure, but she was smarter than anyone had ever given her credit for, except for—

Her hand came up as if to slap herself for thinking of him again, but at the last second it turned into an earnest rub of her forehead. If she stayed in Braavos, there was a chance that she could recover quickly, that she could more past what had happened and get on with her life, that she could shed what she was and become something new. That she could forget. Without her name, without herself. She could leave Arya Stark behind. A girl with no name. No One.

_A girl with or without a name cannot run forever._

And that was the difference, in the end. That was what made her turn her back on Braavos, turn her back on what could have been, and made her step into the airport to board her flight back to Westeros. It wasn't enough to pretend, to make-believe, to forget... She couldn't change who she was, anymore than she could pretend that she didn't love baseball... anymore than she could pretend that she hadn't plummeted into love with Gendry.

She _was _Arya Stark. For better or for worse, for healing or for crippling pain, she was stronger than that. She was stronger than she was being, and she would find a different way to be stronger.

She had to.

* * *

The fall semester of college began dully.

Sansa, finding herself without a place to live and not heeding concerns from almost every member of the family about returning to King's Landing without some form of protection against Joffrey, convinced Arya to find an apartment with her, contrary to Arya's original plan to suffer through another year of dorm life. They settled on a two-bedroom place that was ridiculously priced for the small sitting and two beds it offered. It was not as lavish as Sansa probably hoped, but they entered the market late in the season, where available options were few, and the cheaper ones were even more horrendously small and inconvenient than the one they had, so they pinched their noses and made the arrangements. They were Starks, after all; it wasn't as if they couldn't afford it.

In an interesting way, her hatred of King's Landing made things easier for Arya. She was often too busy being angry about classes or resuming her work stocking shelves or hating the people around her to bother with the blunt ache in her heart. Even Sansa, surprisingly enough, seemed to channel some displeasure with schoolwork to block out her own heartbreak. A year before, Arya never would have thought it possible, but the sisters depended heavily on one another as crutches in the earlygoings of the school year, and once classes picked up they didn't have very much time at all to spend on sulking or frustration.

It was on one of these such afternoons in early October, while a stressed Sansa had retreated to her room for a nap and Arya was doing battle with homework on their lumpy sofa, when an unexpected knock came at the door to their apartment.

They had yet to receive any visitors since their last second move-in, which, with Arya's aversion to their parents, had consisted only of the two sisters and their clothing. Their address had been given out sparingly, and mostly only by Sansa, so when the rap came Arya glanced up in surprise from her work and wondered who it could possibly be.

_Most likely some businessman_, she grumbled to herself thoughtfully, ducking her head back to her work. The knock repeated a moment later, though, and she glanced up again, sighing. _This is bound to make for a headache_.

Grudgingly, she set her book and notebook on the couch next to her and uncurled herself from the couch, padding barefoot across the carpet in pajama pants and a t-shirt, not particularly caring how she looked in the eyes of whoever the fuck had made the mistake of coming knocking at the door when she was in her present mood. Looking over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door once to make sure the knocking hadn't disturbed Sansa's rest, Arya sauntered up to the threshold of the apartment and stood on tiptoe to glance through the peephole.

She had not expected to see the dark face of Jon Snow standing in her hallway.

Very slowly, she let herself down flat-footed, staring at the wood with a expression she could feel paling. As he knocked again, she glared at the door, terrified that it would open. Her heart beat faster, anger rising in her chest and threatening to bubble out of her mouth in the form of furious shouts, through the closed door and all. Before she did something she would regret, she spun on her heel and promptly sprinted in her bedroom door, slamming her door before she could help herself and curling up on her bed, completely losing control of her emotions.

She laid there in a ball, pale and cold, staring at the bedroom door in a mix of freezing fear and fury, as Jon began to actually pound on the apartment outside. Whether from that or her slamming her own door, the sound of another opening told her that Sansa had awoke. With quiet ears, Arya was able to hear the startled footfalls that followed her sister to the door. They stopped abruptly, no doubt as Sansa reached it and glanced through the peephole herself. Then, there was a long pause, and Arya held her breath.

_Don't do it, Sansa. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it._

The deadbolt clicked open, the lock was undone. The creaking of the door penetrated her room as Sansa opened the apartment up to their... cousin. Arya sucked in breath, startled, waiting for whatever was to come next, terrified of Jon, terrified of what she would do to him if he got within arm's reach of her...

"What do you want?" she heard Sansa snap through her door. A pause followed, as if the venom in her voice had shocked Jon on the spot. It certainly had Arya.

He recovered. "Is Arya here?"

"I don't know if I should tell you that," Sansa replied. "What are you doing here, Jon?"

"My season ended weeks ago. I wanted to see my family while I have the time." Arya listened to Jon hesitate. "Sansa, what's wrong?"

"I know what you did, I know you told Dad about her and... how could you, Jon? She told me you promised."

A quiet hissing of breath suggested a Jon Snow sigh. "Look, I really... can I just talk to her? I know she's here."

"That's not a good idea. She's very upset with her, and I don't blame her. Frankly, I'm very upset with you. She's been ready to kill you the next time she saw you." Sansa's voice lowered, and she murmured something Arya couldn't make out before raising her voice back to normal volume. "It hasn't been good."

Another beat passed before Jon said, "Just let me talk with her. Please. I have to explain myself."

"Jon, she's—"

"Please, Sansa."

It was Sansa's turn to sigh—a woman's sigh, loud and threatening and intended to inform a man of just how foolish he was being. "I wouldn't do it if I were you. And I don't want to let you do it. But fine, go see what you've done to her. I don't pity you one bit."

Jon, like the typical male, did not take the hint. Only a hint of anger crept into his voice. "I was trying to help her."

"Save it. Whatever. Don't tell me I didn't warn you."

Arya listened to her sister's footfalls travel back across the floor, until the other bedroom door slammed, leaving a wrenching silence in the sitting room outside. She stayed curled up in a ball in trepidation, staring at the door, watching and waiting and dreading, ears wide open and itching for the slightest sound from the room outside. Seconds washed into a minute, and for a while Arya began to wonder if she had fallen asleep and dreamed the entrance of Jon into the apartment she shared with her sister. But then the floor creaked, and she began to hear the man who had been raised as her brother pad across the floor to stand before her doorway.

It was another gap of several seconds before his rap came at the door. "Arya?" She didn't answer. Though it was irrational to hope, maybe if she didn't respond he might just go away. "Arya, please open up. We have to talk."

"No, we motherfucking don't," she hissed, but it was far too quiet for him to hear through the door.

The doorknob began to turn, and she cursed herself for forgetting to lock it. She leapt to her feet to do just that as he tentatively called out her name one more time. Before she could even take a step towards the door, it cracked open, and she wasted a moment debating on whether or not to throw her weight against it. It was a precious moment that cost her; the cracking door opened slowly, hesitantly, but steadily. And when the opening was large enough, Jon Snow's head carefully peeked around the corner, looking at her.

"Arya—"

"Get out."

He blinked, and pushed the door open fully. Her blood was on fire now. There was only heat and anger. Jon appeared not to notice, as he stepped completely into her room. "Arya, I need to speak with you."

"I have nothing to say to you," she growled. "Get out of my room."

His arms spread wide, he took a step towards her. "Arya, listen—"

She didn't even think about it. Rearing back, swift as a deer, quick as a snake, her arm arced up from her side, and she slapped him across the cheek as hard as she could.

The blow actually sent him staggering, a gasp of pain escaping his throat as he stumbled a step backwards, his eyes wide and glaring at her in shocked surprise. Her palm stung, the insides of her fingers where they had struck him, and it was incredibly satisfying to feel her skin throb in the aftermath. Jon stared at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed in shock, as he came to a halt, lifting a hand to his own face and cautiously feeling where she'd struck him, as if to check if it had actually happened.

It wasn't the first time she had hit Jon. Various times over the years, whether teasing her or genuinely frustrating her, she had punched his arm or leg or, occasionally, his gut. Most of the time he would laugh it off or shake his head at her, and that would be the end of it. Never before had she slapped him, and never before had she expected to gain such satisfaction from the action, and in seeing him hurt beneath that blow.

"Don't you dare tell me to listen, Jon Snow!" she cried, taking a step backwards and brandishing a finger at him. "I trusted you. I _trusted _you! Get out of here. Go."

"Arya," he gulped, lowering his hand from his face with a grimace. "I can see you're upset, and I understand. But all I was trying to do was protect you. I just wanted to make sure you were safe."

"So you fucking told Dad?" she screamed, shaking her head. More tears sprang into her eyes; she wiped them off vigorously. She was so sick of crying. "Dad, who has secrets he never fucking told his children. Gods, why did I even tell you? What was I thinking?" Scowling, she glared at him in derision. "And you... when were you going to tell me that you're not even my brother? When were you going to clue me in on _your _secret? You... you... you _bastard_!"

His expression had darkened as she spoke and he had turned away. At the last, he glanced back at her. His eyes were dark and cold. "So you know about that, then. And you know that it wasn't really my secret to tell."

"Oh, fuck that! Fuck that, fuck it, fuck everything, you've been lying to me all this time. I trusted you, I trusted you to keep the only fucking secret I had and you didn't fucking do it! You asshole, Jon! Do you know what you've done? Do you know what Dad did?"

"Yes." Against her shouts, his voice seemed a whisper. At least his face looked grim and he had stopped favoring his cheek. Surveying her glumly, he continued, "Robb told me about it."

"You're still speaking to Robb, then?" she snapped. "Because he seems to have taken my side. So did Sansa. So has every-fucking-one else in the world, Jon, except for you. Believe me, you are the _last _person in the world that I want to talk to right now. You just need to go away. Get away from me."

He cringed as if she'd slapped him again when she exclaimed that she didn't want to see him, but he held his ground. "Yes, Robb's still speaking to me. He understands why I did it, at least, and he forgave me as soon as he realized I wasn't trying to hurt you."

"Well, you did." She turned her back on him, facing her bed and wanting to kick something. "You might as well just get in line with everyone else who didn't want to hurt me and ended up doing it. Gendry, Dad, you, fucking everybody. So I'm done with it. I'm done with being hurt. Just get away from me."

"Arya—"

"Enough!" she screamed, whirling back to him. "What are you doing here? What do you think you can say?"

Jon had taken a step closer to her, but he backed off now, his arms raised defensively. "Arya, I just want to make sure you know that I had no idea Dad would do what he did. I only told him because I didn't like the consequences that might come from sneaking behind his back. I was just looking out for you."

"Good _fucking _job!"

He closed his eyes against her tirade, but didn't stop. "I know what Dad did—"

"Do you know _why _he did it?" she hissed, growing angrier as she recalled the stormy night in her father's study where he had revealed more family secrets than she had thought the Starks possessed.

"Yes, I do," Jon said. His eyes were honest, his face was open... but she'd trusted him before. "I was told the whole story, too, when he told me that Lyanna was really my mother and... Targaryen my father." For a moment, his own demons seemed to encompass his thoughts, but he shook them off and pressed onward. "I don't agree with what he did. I can see why he did, but I would _not _have done the same. And I know I can't change his mind and I don't know if you'll forgive me, but I am _so _sorry for what happened."

She glared at him for several long moments, sucking in deep breaths, trying to sort out her feelings and put words to her emotions, to decide exactly what she wanted to say to her half-brother that was really her cousin, the catalyst to the reaction that had splintered her life. He was the embodiment of her problem, the root, the instigator, the closure, everything, someone she loved as a brother and someone who had committed an unforgiveable offense. And she loved him and hated him, hated him because she hated herself for not being strong enough to forget.

"Just go," she mumbled, hoping a soft misery would appeal where hot anger had not. "Go back to the Wall. Don't come back. Not this offseason. Not next season. No more promises. No more trust. Go back to the Wall where you belong. You ruined everything."

His eyes filled with horror and regret, and she turned her back on him so she wouldn't have to see them. It didn't make her feel terrifically better that she was hurting him, but _he _had broken the promise, not her, and it was not her choice. One secret of such magnitude blown was enough to make her question every being able to trust again and if Jon Snow was a casualty of her caution, so be it.

"Did he really mean that much to you?"

Arya stiffened, listening to her own breath, anguishing in her memories. In a whisper, she replied, "You can't possibly understand."

A void fell over them, her facing her bed and praying for him to leave, to let her be at peace, or at war, whichever it would be. At least she would be alone, where no one else could see her fight herself and lose. She fully expected him to step towards her and try to hug her or do something else as thoroughly foolish, but, for once, Jon Snow did not reach out to her in her suffering. She was ashamed by her relief.

A full minute passed, her listening to her own heartbeat and breathing, before she realized that he was gone. As the thought made itself plain in her mind, she heard the apartment door outside click shut, and for the first time since seeing his face through her peephole, she allowed her body to relax.

Later, when she was lying on her side on her bed, wishing Nymeria were there and trying not to think about the unfinished homework waiting on the couch, Sansa knocked on the door and stuck her head into the room. "Are you okay?" her sister asked gingerly.

Arya glanced up at her sister's sympathetic face, and managed a very, very weak grin. "Not really."

Sansa slipped into the room quietly and walked over to seat herself on the corner of the bed, folding her legs up beneath her body. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Sitting up, brushing a stray tear off of her cheek, Arya shook her head. "There's not really anything else to talk about. You've heard it all before."

"That doesn't mean I don't need to hear it again," Sansa replied, reaching out a hand to briefly squeeze one of Arya's. After a pause, the older sister chuckled wryly. "It's so cruel. I'm so happy that we can finally find middle ground on something and get past our differences and get along with each other like sisters are supposed to. But I would have picked almost any other way besides this."

Arya shrugged. "Wasn't really up to us. But yes, I'm glad that you're here for me, too." She bit her lip, watching her sister's face. "Look, Sansa, I know I don't always come across like it, but I really appreciate... everything..."

"You don't have to mention it. It's long overdue."

She shook her head. "Still."

"It's all about what comes next, Arya," Sansa said. "We can't live in the past." With a finger, she carefully nudged Arya's leg. "We have to live for the next thing."

"I'm trying," Arya groaned, falling back onto her back. "I'm trying really hard, Sansa, and, believe me, I freaking hate myself for not being able to do it, but I just can't get him off my mind."

Sansa watched her, picking at the comforter. She glanced away from Arya, looking over the room as she nodded tiredly. "I know. I feel the same way."

Arya tilted her head to better observe her sister. "Have you tried contacting him lately?"

"I don't want to smother him," Sansa murmured, shaking her head. "I tried that at first, and, just... I think I might've ruined everything, more than it already was. If he doesn't want to talk to me, then he doesn't want to talk to me. I don't know if there's a whole lot I can do about it."

"You can fight for him."

"What if he doesn't want to fight for me?" she mumbled weakly, glancing at Arya from the corner of her eye. "Then what's the point? I'll be forcing him into something he doesn't want."

Arya hesitated, trying once again to calmly fathom her sister with Sandor Clegane. She had no idea what the giant brute wanted, and hated him completely for walking out on Sansa. If he somehow made the older sister happy, though, Arya would gladly see him with her and didn't give a damn whether it was something or not.

"I have to say, Sansa," Arya confessed quietly, "if I had as much of a chance as you did at getting back what you once had, I would latch onto it and hold on until it killed me."

Sansa reached up and brushed a tear of her own off of her face. "I'm not you, Arya. I'm not as strong as you."

A flare of anger sparked in her heart. "You think I'm strong? Do you see me? Do you see how difficult it is for me every day? I don't know how you can do it, going through it, if you really felt for Sandor what I felt for Gendry. I don't know how it isn't tearing you apart. You don't even know why it ended. You could still have a chance. Why you're not out on the city right now, scouring the place for him, demanding that he listen to you, I don't know." She shook her head at herself, and then sat up. "In fact, that's exactly what we're going to do."

"What?" Sansa demanded sharply, in confusion.

"I'm going to find him for you," Arya told her sister, bouncing off of the bed and striding about her open carpet. "If you won't yourself. I'm going to make him talk to you, listen to you. Even if it's not what he wants, Sansa, he has no right to walk out on you the way he did."

"Arya, I—"

"Don't even say it." She held up a hand, cutting off her sister's words and glaring down Sansa's second attempt to dissuade her. "If I can't help myself, I'm going to help you. One of us has a chance at closure, at least, and you're not going to squander that. I won't let you."

"And what are we going to do?" Sansa wondered aloud. "Stalk him?"

"I don't know," Arya replied. "But we've both got to stop sulking, and I'm going to return the favor you've given me."

"That's not necessary. Really."

"Shut up." She stopped pacing and stood in front of Sansa with crossed arms. "If he won't come to you, then we're going to throw you at him and make him talk. The least that can happen is you get a good screaming match about how stupid he is." A pang ruptured her chest. Quietly, she added, "Believe me, it feels really good to say that sometimes."

"Really, Arya, you don't have to do this," Sansa muttered. But Arya could see the faint color that had risen to her cheeks, the faintest flicker of hope in a couple fewer wrinkles on her forehead. Arya understood it all too well; a chance at putting the pieces back together. She wished she were so fortunate.

"Well, you don't get a choice," she said, smothering her own sorrow, telling herself that it was not about her. "We're going to find him and make him talk. No one treats my sister like that and walks away unscathed for it."

So was born a distraction, one that actually appealed to Arya and managed to help her limp through her first few weeks of October with a little more vigor than before. She truthfully had no idea how they were supposed to corner Sandor Clegane short of staking out his apartment, which Sansa was completely unwilling to do—Arya would have done it herself, but Sansa refused to share the address with her, despite continuous prodding. It was playoff season, anyway; the Monarchs had destroyed Highgarden in the first round and were making likewise quick work of the Dreadfort in the Championship Series. There was no assurance Clegane would have been in his apartment, anyway. Short of that, attempts to call the number Sansa still clung to in her cell phone resulted in an automated message that explained to them that the number had been disconnected, which very nearly drove Sansa to tears.

It fell on Arya, then, to squeeze the names of the establishments that Clegane and other Monarchs would frequent out of Sansa and change her study venues to stakeouts at such places. Sansa discouraged that, too, but after a while Arya roped her into it. Whenever they had time, whenever one or both of them was off of work or class, they picked a place Sansa thought Sandor might turn up at and they ordered something cheap to dally over in a corner. Once, Arya recognized Meryn Trant passing through a bar late at night with a pair of scantily-clad women, a night after a Monarchs' victory, but she did not approach him. Especially with the excitement of the city growing as the Monarchs advanced to the World Series, she was beginning to worry that they wouldn't have a chance to trap the man until after its conclusion. Truth be told, thinking about the World Series at all churned her stomach, betraying her distraction, and it was not only because she hated the Monarchs' success in any form that it did so.

She never spoke of it, but one morning, coincidentally the day after the Monarchs secured their ticket to the Series, Sansa brought it up for her.

"Are you going back to Winterfell in the next week?" her older sister questioned softly, blowing on her coffee. They were sitting in the corner of a coffee shop, one Sansa remembered seeing Sandor and various other players at more than once.

Arya blanched before she could help herself, and stared directly at her own untouched drink so as not to look at her sister. "Why would I do that?"

Sansa tilted her head. She looked as if she were calling a bluff. "Because the Direwolves just swept the National League Championship Series against Dragonstone. Come on, you can't tell me you hadn't noticed."

With a nonchalant shrug—or what was supposed to be a nonchalant shrug—Arya replied, "So?"

"So?" Sansa repeated. "Arya, you should be excited about this. _I'm _excited about this. This hasn't happened since Dad's days pitching." At the mention of their father, Arya flinched again, and Sansa gasped softly. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking. But, seriously, this should be a really exciting time. This is what you've always wanted, the Direwolves going to the World Series. You should go home and go to the games. This is something you can really enjoy. You may not get another chance at it, you should take advantage of this while you can."

Arya took a scalding drink to avoid speaking and then pulled her mathematics textbook towards herself, trying to appear engrossed and knowing herself to be failing. "Honestly, Sansa, I hadn't really noticed."

That was a lie. She'd watched every game. Alone, tending a lonely drink in the corner a sports bar Sansa thought Sandor might attend, using the cover as an excuse to watch the playoff series. She had stayed for every inning, seen every run. She had watched Gendry save games one and two in Winterfell, painfully unable to look away. She'd watched them blow out the Demons in game three and watched him throw the ninth inning with a five-run lead in game four. The briefest exaltation had sprung up in her chest when the man she loved struck out the last batter, the last remnant of the incorruptible love she held for the Direwolves, but by the time the team had finished celebrating she felt like curling herself back in a ball. Whenever the camera flashed onto Gendry, she tried to tear her eyes away from him and couldn't. He looked happy—he grinned with Robb and Dayne and the rest of them—but she knew him, and there was something in his dazzling blue eyes, something where there was no happiness, only darkness, and it broke her heart again to see it. But there was nothing either of them could do about it.

"Arya," Sansa coaxed lightly, "I really think it would be good for you if you went back to Winterfell to watch a game of the World Series. It would mean a lot to Dad."

"And why the hell would I want to do something meaningful for him?" she blurted, wishing she'd spoken softer but not regretting the emotion. "I owe him nothing. The Direwolves are playing the Monarchs. They're underdogs, they're almost assured not to win. The Monarchs are unbeatable. If I want to watch a game, I'll watch one here in King's Landing, when the team comes down. I'm sure I could scalp a ticket somehow."

Sansa watched her, appearing poised to deliver some other insistence, but then her eyes flashed over Arya's shoulder and she froze. Arya knew what it meant before she whirled around to see what had captivated Sansa's attention for herself, but she needed the visual confirmation.

Sandor Clegane, in his complete half-bruised hideousness, barged into the shop quietly, with three other men in tow. One of them was Meryn Trant, who appeared to be speaking in Sandor's general direction and receiving no reply. Loras Tyrell followed, his golden hair glinting in the sun, engrossed in conversation with the third. He was a tall man, taller by far than Tyrell but not nearly as tall as Clegane, his head turned away from Arya and Sansa's table as the four of them approached the counter, oblivious to the Stark sisters' presence. his build was lean, but his hair was as silver as if it had been scraped off of the moon. Arya had never met him before, but she knew who he was.

She turned back around, finding Sansa very pale and staring at the tabletop, looking rather sick. "Sansa? Are you all right?"

"Quite," the older sister muttered. With a clear effort, she managed to look up at Arya. "I don't think I ever expected him to actually walk through the door. I thought we were taking shots in the dark."

"Well, there he is," Arya whispered, gesturing vaguely over her shoulder, glancing to make damn sure Clegane hadn't suddenly poofed into nothing. He hadn't. "Now's your chance. Maybe the only one you'll get. Go, now. Quickly."

"I don't know what to say," Sansa said, perfectly calmly. Her eyes slid over Arya's shoulder, glancing at her lover, her former lover, her love, whatever he was. "I..." She clamped her mouth shut, clearly frustrated, and exhaled before continuing, "He really hurt me. Now that I see him, that's what I think about."

"Well, go and tell him that," Arya urged. "Let him know how you feel."

"I don't think I can," the older sister whispered. She wrapped her long arms around herself and glared down at the tabletop, the weak afternoon sunlight glancing off of her bright hair. "I don't... all of a sudden, I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean, you're not so sure?"

Sansa glanced up at her, with concern behind her expression. "I don't know... he just left me there. With Joffrey screaming at me. Can I forgive him for that?"

This was an obstacle Arya had not foreseen, and she _almost _became irritated before she actually considered whether or not her sister had a point. It _had _been an uncomfortably brutal falling out between them, without an official ends or discussion. Firsthand, Arya had witnessed Sansa's hurt and confusion over the incident that morning, and she herself wouldn't have been able to watch Sandor Clegane walk to the counter if she didn't realize how much he meant to Sansa.

The giant man had hurt Sansa bad, though, by leaving her there, and then by ignoring her thereafter. Sansa was nothing if not an unforgiving soul—in cases where Arya was not the immature culprit—but as Arya remembered what had happened, she couldn't have blamed her older sister for holding misgivings that went beyond healing, no matter how much affection—no matter how much love—she held for Sandor Clegane.

_It was different with Gendry_, she told herself, and it had been. Gendry hadn't meant to hurt her. Hurting her had looked like it was killing him; he had done it because he felt like he didn't have a choice. Even still, if he had done to her what Clegane had done to Sansa, she couldn't say she wouldn't react like Sansa was now if he came to her trying to explain himself.

Staring at her cup of coffee, Arya snorted at herself. _You're lying. You would take him back with open arms. _And she would have. And that was the worst part.

"I think you should hear him out," Arya said quietly. "Give him a chance to explain himself. You can't keep going on like this. You need closure. One way or another, he's the only one who'll give you that."

"And what if I'm not ready to hear what he says?" Sansa mumbled fearfully.

Arya shrugged. "Then you just move on. That's all you can do. Come on. You're strong. Go and do this for yourself."

They sat in silence for a moment, staring at one another, and then they both glanced back at the four baseball players. Trant was still speaking to Clegane, who was apparently ignoring the man, glaring instead at the fumbling attendant behind the counter hastily preparing coffees with ferocity and disdain. Tyrell was smiling at something the fourth member of their party was saying, shaking his head in amusement. All four hadn't noticed the two Starks sitting in the back of the room.

Sansa's chair screeched against the floor as she pushed it back, climbing admirably steadily to her feet. Despite the annoying sound, nobody turned around. Both sisters swallowed as Sansa moved out from around the table, closing her own notebook as she did so. Very carefully, as if every step might wake a slumbering giant, she strode across the floor of the coffee shop, rounding the three peripheral baseball players and laying a hand on the counter, directly at Clegane's side. She stood perpendicularly to the register, staring straight up at the ugly ballplayer, not saying a word.

For a moment, it seemed as if he didn't notice her. Compared to his size, she looked like a paper doll, thin and frail but standing proud as though made of steel. Trant and Tyrell noticed her, and glanced curiously at one another before regarding Sansa. Either they didn't recognize her or they had not expected to see her to the point of being shocked.

At length, Sandor Clegane seemed to realize that everyone around him had stopped talking, and that he was no longer alone at the counter. He glanced around sharply, first in the wrong direction, showing his bruises to Arya, then whirling to his left, where Sansa waited, unflinching, even as two hundred and fifty pounds of fury swung around in her direction.

Arya had never seen someone large freeze so inhumanly fast before. She could almost see the blood draining from his face as Sansa stared forlornly up into his face, could see the utter horror etch itself into his stone features, fear of a thin woman a third of his size, standing fearlessly before him as though she could crush him with her thumb.

She didn't know how long she watched the scene with meager glee, but eventually, when it was clear the stunned Clegane was far too tongue-tied, the other players far too perplexed to speak, Sansa opened her mouth and murmured something low. It was too quiet for Arya to hear anything more than a buzz, but whatever it was, Clegane's mouth dropped open flat, and all three players heads swiveled in his direction. The gigantic man hesitated, closed his jaw, glanced at his companions, and then growled something back even lower than Sansa's voice. Arya felt a surge of pride as Sansa glanced at the others almost carelessly and then nodded. Sandor turned then to the other Monarchs and glared at them icily for a moment, and that was apparently all the message that was needed. Sansa turned and led him to the door outside to the coffee shop, him following at her heels like a hound. The door jingled shut behind him, and they were barely three steps down the street before Sansa pivoted on him with crossed arms and Sandor began speaking frantically.

Arya watched for only a moment before ducking her head down to her books respectfully, a sad smile gracing her features. She was glad Sansa had not backed down, had faced up to the challenge; a year before, the older sister would have folded and crumbled beneath the adversity. She was a woman grown, though, now, stronger than she had been, confident where she had been doubtful, hard where she had been weak. As radiantly beautiful as ever.

If only Arya hadn't traded places with her. If only she hadn't taken that walk, on that day in King's Landing. If only she hadn't followed that damn sound of baseball...

_No._ Arya jabbed a pencil into her notebook, shocked at herself. _No. I won't wish that. I don't wish that. Never. _She couldn't. If she hadn't... she didn't know where she'd be. She didn't know if she would have been happier, but meeting Gendry had changed her. It hurt, it scalded, it tore and ripped, but he was a part of her. She could wish him away, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to forget, but she didn't want to remember. How could she replace a part of herself that wasn't there? _I won't ever wish I hadn't met him. Not if it means I carry this forever._

"May I join you?"

She started, jerking up and nearly to her feet. The silver-haired man leaning respectfully a few feet away didn't start, but he did take a step back in surprise, his brows creasing in confusion. She knew him; his picture was plastered across the sports magazines, everyone scrambling for his juicy story. How there weren't a hundred cameras flashing right at that moment, Arya didn't know. His smooth face was handsome, in a flawless way. As he realized she wasn't about to attack him, he smiled uncertainly, a welcoming, warming gesture. She looked him in the eye, and found a heavy purple accentuating his pale skins. She preferred blue.

It took her a moment to realize he was pointing at the third chair of the table with a questioning expression, waiting for her permission. A second passed as she struggled to recall what he had said, and then she was forced into the unhealthy dilemma of whether or not she was willing to let him sit with her. In the end, stuck with staring up at him stupidly and having no available pro/con list, she shrugged her shoulders and gulped. "It's a free country."

He laughed, his breath light, as he slid nimbly into the chair. "Not as much as some might think. But thank you." He set his coffee down on the table, next to her books, without drinking from it, watching her with what was probably a kind grin. "You looked lonely. If I'm imposing, just say so and I'll let you be."

It was difficult to tell someone to fuck off when they were looking at you so amiably, and the worst thing was that he probably knew exactly how difficult it was. "You're not imposing. I don't really want to do the work anyway."

"Good." He reached out a hand, respectfully staying out of her personal space. "I'm Aegon Targaryen."

"I know who you are," Arya said, trying not to show her hesitation before she shook his hand.

Aegon smiled, as if he hadn't expected it. "And you?"

_No one_, she almost said, but stopped herself just short. No, she had made her choice. She wouldn't go back on it now. "Arya Stark."

"Ah," Aegon said, his grin widening. "I thought I recognized you, but it was just your features I saw. Yes, you have the look of a Stark about you."

"You've met Starks before?" she inquired, perhaps a bit sharper than she intended.

Aegon shook his head. "No. But I was—am—a fan of your father's. Ned Stark is your father, is he not?" Arya flinched, but nodded; Aegon seemed not only to see the second. "He has a certain look about him, and you've got that in you, too. I always admired him. It was one of my childhood dreams to hit against him."

"His playing days are over," Arya grumbled, glancing back down at her notebook.

There was a pause, which she knew she had made and knew she had made awkward. She almost felt guilty, shooting down the conversation, but Aegon's voice wasn't put off. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"You didn't," she said quickly. Now she did feel guilty, and she didn't know why. She hadn't asked for him to come speak with her. "I'm just..." She glanced up at him, and almost became unnerved by the intensity of his purple eyes. "Having a bad week, is all."

His lips twitched sympathetically. Grasping his coffee cup carefully, apparently unconcerned with any heat that may have been radiating off of it, he lifted it in her direction. "Well, here's to a better week ahead."

She grimaced in approximation of a thankful grin and nodded, choosing not to join him, but couldn't help her curiosity as he took a long draught. Braavos was fresh in her mind, and didn't help the matter any. "You really grew up in the Free Cities?"

Aegon set his cup back down, and laughed dryly. "I'm afraid you've got me at a disadvantage. You may already know a measure about me, but I don't know anything about you. That's hardly fair."

"Life's not fair."

She expected him to insist, to refuse, to protest... but that was somebody else. Aegon merely shrugged thoughtfully and chuckled. "I suppose that's true. Yes, I grew up in the Free Cities. Pentos, to be exact. My parents died when I was young, as you may or may not know..." He glanced at her table. "...and, well, my family's legacy in Westeros kind of died with them. In some ways, I'm trying to reclaim some of that. From what I've heard, your family has a mighty legacy of its own in the game of baseball."

"We get along," she replied evasively.

He grunted softly. "I'll find out soon enough. We're destined to collide, I see, in a few days' time. It should be an interesting match. For all the world to see."

"It will, at that," she said, imagining exactly what it would be like for the Direwolves to clash with the Monarchs, despite herself. Abruptly, she heard herself say, "You're the better team, but Winterfell is scrappier."

Aegon stared at her blankly for a moment, and then raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

With a nod, she added her rationale. "You've got the talent, the power, the speed, the experience. The Direwolves don't have much of that. But they've gotten to where they got on their determination alone."

"So have I."

"Maybe," she said, watching him watch her in fascination. "But your rise came because you were good to start off with. The Direwolves didn't suddenly pick up a card and run with it. They started off with the exact same amount of middle-of-the-line talent that they have right now. What changed was their mindset. They stopped accepting hard losses and hard knocks. They focused in. They started adjusting to curve balls and diving after close grounders, hustling the extra step. Sheer will has gotten them to this point."

"No new talent, you say?" he replied, quirking his lips. "What about Gendry Waters? An unbeatable closer? Isn't that new talent?"

Her heart jerked, but somehow she managed to keep her face straight. "As I recall, the Monarchs beat him. That doesn't sound unbeatable to me. One man isn't a team. One game isn't a season. It's a game of averages, which you have the absolute advantage in. But don't let that fool you into becoming complacent, because that's where the Direwolves have excelled. On paper, you should win every time, but paper only goes so far as when the game begins. Keep your own focus and play your own game, and you should win, but be careful about mistakes that you make, because one mistake could be your last."

His wide, intrigued eyes narrowed. "And why is that?"

Arya merely shrugged. "Because that's what Direwolves do. Wait until you make a fatal error, and lunge for the kill."

In the silence that followed, his smile slipped away from his lips and he tapped a finger thoughtfully against them, watching her with a pensive expression. She wasn't intimidated by him, but she wasn't sure she liked the way his eyes were locked on her. Regardless, she stared right back with a flat face, waiting for his response. She expected him to call her naive or deflect her statement with a comment on how the game would be the ultimate decider.

Instead, he lowered his hand to the table and cocked his head to one side. "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

Several moments passed before Arya could be reasonably convinced she'd heard him right. Even still, she couldn't help but ask, "What?"

"Would you be interested in going to dinner with me?" he repeated, appearing for all the world like it didn't matter to him one way or another.

She couldn't help the next word that escaped her lips. "Why?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why not? You're pretty, you're obviously incredibly smart, you love baseball, clearly, and I am attracted to things that have fire. I can see a lot of fire pent up in you. So... my question stands."

Perhaps she'd misunderstood him. There was no way Aegon Targaryen could be asking her out on a date. She was Arya Stark. No one liked her. She was slight and stubborn and bossy and rude and everything that no one wanted. No one but—

She glanced at Aegon. She wanted to say no. He was tall, but not tall enough. He was lean, fit, but not the muscular that she wanted. His voice was smooth, the tone of education and confidence, not rough experience and practicality. The list went on and on. Silver hair, not black. Purple eyes, not blue. Some things that differed by inches, some by miles. There wasn't anything wrong with him; he was just wrong. It didn't even make sense to her, but it did. She had no desire for a date. She wasn't looking for him. Truth be told, all she wanted was to curl up into a ball and sleep for a very long time.

"Sure."

_I don't want to forget_, she thought. _Just... let me forget for a little while._


	25. Chapter 24

**24**

On the morning of the first game of the World Series, Gendry rose before the sun. In late October, there was barely any light to be had when he left the apartment, too tired to keep sleeping, too nervous to eat, but he flipped his motorcycle lights on and rode it to the Great Keep, knowing full well he wasn't expected to report for at least another seven hours. It would be at least twelve before the game started; he wished it was right now. He didn't want to wait.

It was freezing in Winterfell, the clutches of the tundra already settling in mid-autumn; frost clung to grass in front of businesses to lampposts as he rolled into more metropolitan city. As the sky began to brighten, his breath misted heavy behind him, the chilling wind sinking into his bones as he rode. He barely noticed it; he had been born in summer, raised in it, molded by it, but he felt nothing but winter now. He was prepared.

Frozen dew clung to the Direwolves' field, as well, when he got there. The concourse was empty so early in the morning; his footsteps echoed forebodingly as he crossed it to climb down the rows of seats. All he had to wear was a jacket and jeans and the backpack he pulled off to carry by its strap at his side, but he wasn't bothered by the cold.

He dropped his pack and sat in the first seat of the first row, watching his breath dance before his face, looking out over the field and imagining forty thousand people ringing it, lights at full blast, players at full throttle. In only a few short hours—yet far too long for his taste—Winterfell was going to come alive for its first World Series in over a decade, and he was to be an integral part of it. Millions of people across the nation would be tuning in on their televisions. The better team would win four games in the series. The loser would walk away with nothing. Just thinking about it set his heart accelerating. It was the ultimate ultimatum, in the life of his that had been cursed to death with ultimatums; it was his stomping ground. It was his trade.

But that wasn't why he was here, before the sun was up, his skin turning blue, his eyes watching the field blankly from the stands.

He had dreamed of fire that night, and ice, a lot of them both, and throughout it all there had been a voice, laughing at him—it had sounded peculiarly like Aegon Targaryen's. As if that hadn't been enough to unnerve him, the dream had shifted then. Arya was there, alone, standing between the flames, completely unconcerned about the inferno around her. Gendry tried to reach out for her, to save her from the blaze, but every time he got there she wasn't, anymore, and waited just a little farther in the flames, glaring at him with anger and contempt. Then she was gone, and there was a baseball hurtling over the flames, straight at his face, and he had cringed and tried to get out of its way...

...sitting bolt upright in bed, releasing a shuddering gasp, clutching at his chest, where his heart was beating so quickly that it reached the point of excruciation. Groaning through the pain, it had taken several minutes for his sweat-coated body to return to its normal homeostasis, during which he could do nothing but pray and be haunted by the aftershocks of his dream. As soon as it abated, all he wanted was to get out of the apartment, and he had nowhere else to go but the Great Keep. It was where he'd begun. It was where he belonged.

Now that he was there, though, the cruel laugh in the background of consciousness bounced around his head even more than it had lying bedridden for the few helpless minutes before. It had been weeks since his encounter in Casterly Rock with the son of Rhaegar Targaryen. Beyond an understandable level of discomfort with the situation, Gendry hadn't given it much thought throughout the short extent of the National League Championship Series.

Ever since its conclusion, though, nothing had weighed heavier on his mind. It was ridiculous, he knew; a threat that couldn't be anything but empty, that sounded like it came from madness rather than actual hatred. Gendry still couldn't understand what the man had been speaking of, a weeks' worth of neglected thought meant he didn't recall the specifics. What he did remember was that the man clearly thought that they had vendettas against one another, and that they were bound to clash in the World Series. While the former was certainly news to Gendry, the latter had played out all too close to Targaryen's prediction, which made uneasy. Uneasiness entering the biggest game of your life was not something that boded well. And then there was Arya, evading him between the flames, and that only made everything worse.

Sitting in the bleachers, completely numb, he looked up at the dark morning sky and tried to find a shooting star to wish upon. He stared for several minutes, every possible outcome of the World Series flashing through his mind, every possible outcome of Aegon strolling to the plate against him on the mound. Not a single flare streaked across the night, and then the sun rose and he shivered until he could no longer see his breath.

The hours dragged by that day, and yet they were a blur. Gendry tried to eat something and failed; his stomach was churning with butterflies all day. The moment of any young ballplayer's dreams was about him, but all felt was nerves and uncertainty. He prepared himself a bath in the late morning, a steaming bath to soak his body, but that did little. He took a cold shower, and that had little more effect. It helped when other players began to arrive, hours earlier than necessary, shared nerves letting them all share a laugh here or there. But Targayen loomed in the back of his mind. Gendry hated his inability to push the bastard out.

When Robb arrived, one of the last to do so, by design, he tapped Gendry's shoulder on his initial walk through locker room and nodded towards the door. Gendry followed without question, his mind too preoccupied to worry about what Robb had to say, but once they were in the hall Robb turned around and offered him a grin.

"We're here, eh?"

"Yeah, we're here," Gendry acknowledged.

Robb's face turned a little more serious, a little more captain-like, as he took a deep breath. "I want to make sure you're okay, again. I know you left early, and if I had to guess, your sleep has probably been like shit lately. And _you're _not even getting married."

Gendry drudged up a smile he didn't really mean, finding himself almost wishing that weren't the case. "Just... just a little nervous. Just want to get out there and play."

"You sure? Now is the only time we get if you need to talk. Later... later it's too late. If there's something, get it out now."

_Isn't there always something?_ he remarked irritably to himself. There was. Always Arya on his mind, always Targaryen scraping away, swinging at him. But he had to be strong. He was steel. He forced himself to shake his head, looking Robb straight in the die. "There's nothing."

"Glad to hear it," Robb said. He grinned widely, clapping Gendry on the shoulder. "This is the World Series, man. Let's go make history."

The atmosphere reminded him of King's Landing. As he and the relievers made their way to the bullpen, the crowd was alight and afoot, dozens of flashing bulbs going off around the stadium every second. The roar was nearly deafening, even on field level, and followed them into the slightly-insulating underhang and sanctuary of the bullpen. It felt exactly as it had in the nation's capitol, when the stakes had been infinitely lower and the Monarchs had taken every game of their matchup, when Gendry had caved beneath the pressure—understandably—and surrendered to his anger. He did his best to ignore the Monarchs and their dugout as both teams came out forty five minutes before the game's beginning, but it was difficult. From mere, inevitable glances he got caught of a dozen familiar faces—Lannister, Pycelle, Tyrell, Clegane, even Joffrey Baratheon, each one looking more smug and self-assured than the last. Except for Clegane; Clegane just looked terrifying, per usual. The only difference between then and now was that before an upwards of fifty thousand people had been burning him in effigy, whereas now the number was closer to forty five thousand who wanted nothing more than for him to carry their team on his back to the promised land, an immediately preferable alternative. And once he caught a glimpse of a face that hadn't been there the last time. The silver-haired man perched on the top-step of the Monarchs' dugout as Gendry strode across the outfield grass, and staring at him the entire time. Gendry did his best to glare back, but before long he was forced to look away, and did his best to put Aegon Targaryen out of his mind. The purple eyes followed him all the way to the outfield wall, though, he knew. The words returned to him from some nights prior. _I hope you're prepared, because I'm coming_. Gendry was appalled by the almost-shiver he experienced, and, angrily, forced himself to concentrate on his nerves, instead, interestingly enough.

The pregame passed like a blur, even though he was aware of every minute of it. Slowly, he became actually aware that he was a member of a professional baseball team that was about to play the first game of the World Series. As the rest of the bullpen resumed their normal lazy activity in a rather jumpier state than usual following the national anthem, Gendry found himself remaining afoot, anxiety and tranquility alternating as his mind flashed between panic and a realization that he was prepared for what was to come. He glanced at the others, then, as epic music began to play over the loudspeakers and the crowd screamed with excitement and delight as the Direwolves pranced out of the dugout and took the field for the beginning of the Series. Observing his fellow relievers' movements, he was relieved to find that their bodies exhibited much of the same tension as his, even if their actions were trying to demonstrate relaxation. It made him feel better, and, actually, less anxious, to realize that he wasn't an odd one out; he was actually just an ordinary member of the crowd, now.

Then he remembered that he was playing in the World Series, and he might as well not ever have calmed in the first place.

It was Jory's day on the hill, opening the series with hopefully a bang for the Direwolves. He, unlike the bullpen, appeared as fluid and quiet as ever as he delivered his warm-up pitches. Robb's throw-down to second was on the money, as well, his body language demonstrating nothing but confidence and focus. Gendry forced himself to sit down next to Cayn on the bench bordering the double wall and gazed across the outfield at his captain. He couldn't have asked for a better friend, but he could do without Robb's constant concern. Yes, he was in pain, but he had, as yet, forced himself through it for the better of his team. He loved Robb like a brother, but Gendry was past the point of comfort. He was to the point of trust and belief, and, though one couldn't find a more loyal or honorable person than Robb Stark, Gendry was beginning to wish that the man would just let well enough be.

_But that doesn't matter_, he forced himself to say, watching Robb fix the dirt around home plate as the ball went around the horn. _You're here to pitch, not whine. It's the only thing you've got left, so do it._

The tension and ecstasy on the air was nearly palpable. Janos Slynt was the leadoff hitter for the Monarchs, and he strode towards the plate with swagger. Gendry watched him say something to Robb and watched Robb smoothly snap something back so snarky or surprising that Slynt froze on the spot to swing around and glare at the catcher. Robb was too quick; he had already dropped his mask and was crouching behind the plate, waiting for the batter to step into the box so he could sign the first pitch of the World Series. Gendry grinned to himself and felt just a little bit better.

So the battle began.

For the first game of the Series, it might as well have been the last. Hitters were taking heavy swings, treating each pitch as though it separated them from certain death, but the pitchers were even better. Jory squared off against Osmund Kettleback, the Monarchs' young ace, and it was a duel for the keys to the kingdom. They were the perfect microcosm of their respective teams: Kettleback wove through the Direwolves' lineup over the first five innings, seemingly picking them apart without breaking a sweat; Jory, alternatively, plowed through the Monarchs like a bulldozer, clearly using everything he had in him on every pitch, anything he had in him at all to get outs. It was working, for both players; Gendry earned a small amount of satisfaction when Aegon Targaryen, batting third for the Monarchs ahead of Clegane, dinked out to the mound for his first out and struck out looking for his second. On the other side, Robb was not having the best day of his career, nor were Edric or Hallis. Both pitchers had stacked up exactly six strikeouts through five innings, with only three hits scattered between them, the Direwolves' only receiving a prayer bloop with two outs in the third that was instantly squelched.

In the top of the sixth, it looked as though Jory would have another clean campaign, getting Slynt to swing through three offspeed pitches and Tyrell to watch embarrassingly as a full count cutter slipped down the middle of the plate. The momentum was to the Direwolves at that point, if only from home field advantage, but the crowd was certainly behind them, cheering for Jory's every pitch as if they realized just how much of a small victory each one was, as Gendry did.

Stepping in after Tyrell with two outs was Targaryen, tapping his shoes carefully and showing no sign of how much his first two failures must have been eating at him. Clegane, standing on deck, was certainly making no such attempt; his vicious practice swings clearly showed everyone in the solar system that he was quite unhappy with his own two uncustomary popouts. Gendry focused on Targaryen, though, leaning forward on his frosty knees and silently begging Jory to make the silver-haired phantom look a fool for the third time.

The first pitch missed low. Targaryen let the second curve fall in for a strike nonchalantly, stepping out of the box and tightening his batting gloves, taking his sweet time while Jory stood poised on the rubber, patiently awaiting the next pitch. They weren't very big, from where Gendry was sitting, but he noted that they looked exactly like they belonged; two professionals competing against one another for the highest honor, completely calm and waiting for each other to make the first false move. Exactly how Gendry should have been feeling, or at least showing, when he was nervous enough simply watching his teammate pitch.

Abruptly, an ominous air sank into Gendry's skin, just as Jory went through his windup and strode towards the plate. He couldn't have explained it, whether it was intuition or just having a strong feeling for the game, but the next thing he knew, Targaryen had swung and connected sweetly, and the baseball was airborn, arcing towards the Direwolves' bullpen as if it flew with a purpose.

Gendry's glove was sitting next to him on the bench; robotically, he grabbed it and slid it onto his hand. Around him, a half dozen voices called, "Heads up!" but he saw the ball the entire way. Glumly, he plucked it out of the air a foot in front of his body, where it would have struck him square in the thigh had he not reeled it in. A few muffled swear words reached him from his teammates as he stared at it, and he felt like joining them.

Groans and moans reached him from the crowds, but his own mental ones overpowered them. He glanced up to the field to find Aegon Targaryen rounding the bases at a quick jog, wasting no time, the respectful and appropriate way to do so. Gendry watched him the entire way around third, and the Monarch did not glance towards the bullpen, after his home run, a single time. For some reason, that made Gendry all the angrier.

As a run tallied sadly onto the scoreboard under the Monarchs' name, Gendry handed the ball to Desmond, sitting next to him on the bench. "Give that to your dog."

"I don't have a dog," Desmond replied, staring at the ball in hatred.

Gendry slapped it into the man's hands anyway, turning back to the field bitterly. "Then buy one, and then give the damn thing to it."

Where the momentum had been the Direwolves' before, it was no longer. The mood did not go out of the crowd, despite the home run. Truthfully, on the exterior, it seemed more than ever that Winterfell had the support of its fans. Underneath, though, even after Clegane struck out furiously to end the inning, the Direwolves' coming up empty in the sixth and seventh made the looming run on the scoreboard appear weigh ever more heavily on the minds of players.

At that point, the anxiety of playing left Gendry, replaced by an anxiety _to _play, and he began silently urging Luwin across the baseball diamond to pull him out of the bullpen. But there was no cause for it, of course. He was the closer; it was the first game of the World Series, not a time to waste an irreplaceable arm. So he was forced to watch Cayn jog in to take the eighth inning instead, and, when the Direwolves were able to pile up nothing once again in the eighth, Quent was called upon to subdue the Monarchs enough to give their team a chance in the ninth.

But despite Jory's epic pitching, and considerably admirable outings by Cayn and Quent which restricted the formidable but frustrated Monarchs' lineup to their one run, Edric and Robb struck out back-to-back to end the game, both of them looking afterwards as though they had cost their team the entire World Series, instead of simply failing to offer a chance for the comeback. In the end, it was no one's fault. Jory had thrown terrifically; Kettleback had thrown better.

Long after the Monarchs had shaken congratulatory hands with each other, long after Gendry had been forced to watch their smug faces, from Baratheon to Slynt—minus Clegane, who chose burned and furious over confident—long after the Winterfell crowd had filed dejectedly out of the stadium and the Direwolves had acquired a one-game deficit in the World Series, Luwin had little to say about the loss. He expressed his short displeasure with the lack of hitting, but himself admitted that Kettleback's stuff had been virtually unhittable before ordering them to an early bed.

"We're in a short hole already," he told them in all their assorted states of depressed undress, just before he ducked towards his office with Rodrik Cassel to discuss their position. "Go home. Tomorrow we have to show that their fluke is all they'll get out of us. We're still only four wins away from victory."

The others seemed to brighten slightly, afterwards. They found laughs and encouragement with each other, while Gendry dropped his uniform in the laundry bin and pulled on his street clothes. They remembered that they had only lost by one run, that they had actually been competing, scrap to talent, and realized that they had a chance to win. Perhaps it was his already distressed state, but Gendry could not join them. He managed smiles for Edric and Mikken and a few words of determination, but on his freezing ride home on the motorcycle, he couldn't help but think about Targaryen's polite but nevertheless condescending round of the bases—as if he were trying to minimize the Direwolves' pain while still succeeding in crushing them. It infuriated Gendry.

_They think we're here by luck_, he growled to himself mentally. _They all do. They think their way is paved for them._

Then again, they had the right to. While both teams were experiencing incredible success in the middle of the regular season, the Monarchs had taken the Direwolves to town, winning all three of their matchups definitively, if one had not been handily. Gendry hated to admit it—he wouldn't have, perhaps to anyone who wasn't... perhaps to anyone—but the Monarchs were the better team. The Direwolves had more honor, character, and grit, but they were on the world's biggest stage; talent and ability won out in the short-term, and they didn't have another season to prove themselves.

With these thoughts bouncing around his head, he avoided Robb pointedly once he made it back to his apartment, for fear of voicing them aloud, something he thought might make them truer than they were. For his own part, Robb's face remained dark and clouded, and it was not difficult for the two to avoid a conversation in their minimal interaction before they both turned in for an early sleep. Or—at least in Gendry's case—an early attempt.

He found himself at the stadium before dawn again the next day, this time in the film room. No one would be there for hours, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. Sleep wasn't there for him; only memories, that variably tormented and then tortured him. He couldn't afford it, not when he was playing in the World Series. So he locked himself in the film room and tried to be productive, scrolling through old games, examining his deliveries, his leg positions, his release point consistency. Scrolling through his successful saves mostly showed him the same things—accuracy, consistency, potency—and were generally unhelpful as he tried to work out kinks in his motion. All of it brought him down to his two blown saves, where, if ignoring the Harrenhal game—which he refused to return to under any circumstances—he had thrown the worst. One of them had been the result of luck from the other team, leaving him, ironically, with only his demise in King's Landing to scrutinize.

Which left him staring at the screen, passing from at-bat to at-bat, replaying that fateful day. First Blount's leadoff walk, then Swann's long flyout, followed by hits by Slynt and Tyrell and then...

Gendry had been scrolling through the same pitch over and over again for nearly a half hour before he realized that he was at it. He blinked, and paused the playback on the most recent loop of the pitch, conveniently catching the frame of the instant that he released the pitch. Moving his hand away from the cursor, he sighed, surveying the scene of the screen. Clegane sat at the plate; his face was brutal and ravenous, as if he already knew he would hit the pitch out of the park. Robb was in the frame, sitting back on his haunches, ready to catch the pitch that he never would. The umpire crouched behind him, fated to toss Gendry from the game only a few moments later. It was like a window back to his past, a freeze frame of a moment that could have broken his short career.

Thinking back, having watched it an upwards of one hundred times over the last thirty minutes, he could have ran the whole clip in his head without needing to see it visually, but instead he clasped his hands, rested his chin on them, and stared at the screen, stared at the frozen picture of him and Clegane and tried to figure out exactly what had happened, why the ball had been hit how it was, how he had made such a drastic mistake and lost his team the game that day. It wasn't a big deal, he knew; his team had recovered from the win, they had made the playoffs, there were in the World Series... At the same time, Gendry couldn't help but think about how Clegane and the team that had beaten him that day were residing only half a ballpark away, or would be in a few hours. Staring at the image, staring at the moment, he remembered his devastation, his anger in King's Landing. The cause had returned... would a moment like this happen again? Could a pitch very similar to the one he couldn't get off of his mind come again? Would it haunt him?

The pitch hadn't missed, then. He had released it where he had been supposed to. It had broke like it was supposed to. It had been Clegane's weakness; his only one was breaking balls. He hadn't messed up. It had been a great pitch.

Yet Clegane had knocked it out of the ballpark. Knocked _him_ out of the ballpark.

Sighing in exhaustion, he unclasped his hands and placed his face into his palms, leaning over his knees. _I made the right pitch. A good pitch. And I still lost. I lost everything._ By the time his thoughts concluded, baseball was the farthest thing from his mind. The screen before him wasn't displaying the only right pitch he'd thrown that had missed its mark. He gritted his teeth in self-loathing. _Throwing the right pitch for the wrong reasons. The wrong pitch for the right reasons. There's no difference. You still lost. Lost the game, lost the girl, lost your chance_.

_No_. That was his voice, too, but it came from somewhere very far back in his head. Almost obscured by the rest of his thoughts. _Not your chance. Not yet_.

"Not yet," he repeated aloud, and pulled his head out of his hands to stare at the screen. He still saw himself. He forced himself not to look at Clegane, not to see anything but himself, his arm pulled back, his elbow torqued, his body twisted to throw the slider. He saw his name stretched taut across the back of his jersey, the pride of his life standing for the world to see. _The Series is dark and full of terrors. But it takes four games to win, not one. Not two._

He said it again, and again, and again until he thought that he believed it. Then he stood up and turned off the screen, turned off that damn pitch, and went into the clubhouse to lie down on a bench. It wasn't the most comfortable thing he had ever slept on, but he only woke up when someone nudged him hours later, the first of the rest of the Direwolves arriving at the ballpark. He wasn't sure if he felt any better than he had before the nap, but it didn't matter now. There was baseball to play. And he was going to get that chance.

He didn't notice the crowd that day. It was as cold as it had been the day before, the sun set before the beginning of the game, and the fans were as loud and supportive as they had ever been, but on that day Gendry had focus only enough for the Monarchs, and he was staring at them hard. All day. From the back of the clubhouse tunnel as they took visiting batting practice. From the dugout as they stretched before the beginning of Game 2. From the bullpen as they prepared to bat in the first inning. He wasn't sure what he was watching, but he was watching them and waiting, pondering, itching to be on the rubber. He wanted his chance. He wanted them to come up swinging. Loathe as he was to admit it, that pitch was still frozen in the back of his head; he wanted to prove that it had been only a blip on the radar, that the true storm was still waiting for them, that he was everything they didn't want to hit them. He wanted to prove that he wasn't that pitch, that he was better than it.

The game started off slow. Sluggish, in fact. The first three innings saw a lot of pitches, and not many baserunners. It was nearly a mirror of the day before, except today the pitchers were less dominant and hitters were missing pitches. Clegane popped up a down-the-middle fastball that might not have ever landed otherwise. Edric struck out on consecutive fastballs that he should have lined into the gap. Mikken swung on 3-0 and grounded out. It was almost a boring game, really, Gendry begging his team to do anything.

It was an unusually scoreless affair, then, both starters lasting into the eighth, both teams scrabbling for runs. The Direwolves' hitters were seeming to become desperate as the game progressed, understandably; it wasn't necessarily a must-win game, but going on the road with two losses to show for your homestand was not something any of them wanted to do.

Then, in the bottom of the eighth, where the top of the lineup had failed, the bottomof the order came through. Consecutive singles were followed by a perfect sacrifice bunt by a pinch hitter. Hallis followed in the leadoff spot, and on the first pitch everyone in the stadium held their breath when he took a pitch off the end of the bat and skyed it to shallow center with runners on second and third. Gendry actually rose to his feet and inhaled with the other forty five thousand people in the stands, hundreds of cameras flashing around the moment, every single person in the stadium wondering the same thing. _Is it deep enough to score the runner?_

It all came down to speed. Tyrell settled under it, gearing up for a charge as the runner squared off on third, quite prepared to sprint home with everything he had. Then the center field let it sink into his glove, took three steps towards the plate, and, as the runner exploded off the base, fired.

The race was on.

Ninety thousand eyes followed the ball inside of the stadium; millions more did around the nation as it launched itself over second base and hurtled airborne towards the plate. It would arrive on the fly, there was no doubt of that. The runner was quick, but it would have to be as close a play as there ever could have been for him to have a chance at the run.

The catcher, Blount, had to take one and a half steps to the right of the plate to catch the baseball; the runner reached the edge of the circle of dirt surrounding home plate. Both catcher and runner gathered and threw themselves headlong at the white base sitting directly between the two of them, a mitt and a finger stretched full extension, both as desperate as one could possibly be to get the other first, like two lovers reaching, begging for contact when they knew it was impossible.

The runner's most outstretched finger touched the plate. Blount's glove slammed into the runner's arm at somewhat roughly the exact same time, while both bodies went careening impossibly out of control thereafter. No one in the world could have called the play except for the man wearing pads and black, only two feet away from the plate, staring directly at it as it happened. No one else could have the courage to open their mouth, as the umpire did, and make the call. Gendry and the rest of the world held their breaths, as though it were Game 7, not the eighth inning of Game 2. He heard the call from the bullpen; he didn't need the arm motion.

"Safe!"

The stadium exploded. Gendry didn't participate in the celebration. He was already shrugging off his jacket, baring his arms to the frosty chill of the night, seizing his glove and beckoning to the bullpen catcher. A run had crossed for the Direwolves, putting them into a save situation in the World Series. He didn't have to wait for the bullpen coach to receive the call from the dugout, to let him know he was up; even if he wasn't, even if for some reason Luwin didn't want him... by the gods, he was going into the fucking game.

He warmed up normally, as if he had been told to stand up, the bullpen coach simply watching bemusedly, not even answering the phone when it rang. The rest of the bullpen watched, too, as Edric stepped up to the plate, potentially able to drive in the insurance run from third base as Gendry heaved pitch after pitch to the bullpen catcher, knowing full well that he would face the brunt of the Monarchs' lineup in the coming inning. He felt invigorated, energetic, and actually relished it when Edric struck a weak grounder to second base for the third out of the inning. He had one run to work with; one run was all he needed.

Love and devotion showered down upon him as he jogged out to the mound, wild cheers arising as his name was called over the loudspeaker. He tried not to look at the fans, to focus in on Robb as his captain trotted behind the plate and prepared to take the warm-up pitches, but he couldn't help glancing up once or twice and drinking in the bright lights, the flashing bulbs, the loud applause, the trust that he held in his hand in that moment. It was something a nobody from King's Landing didn't get every day.

Eight pitches later, after the throwdown, he and Robb exchanged a meaningful glance, and nothing more needed to be said. They went to work.

Janos Slynt stepped into the box. He and Robb exchanged a few more words. The crowd was on their feet, shouting too loud for Gendry to hear the men's exchange, but the expressions on both of their faces suggested plainly the trash that was being passed between them. It only made Gendry grin as Robb dropped to a crouch and signed for a fastball.

The first pitch was an uncontested, ninety-nine mile per hour fastball down the heart of the plate for strike one. Slynt appeared unperturbed, but Gendry just told himself that the man was all the more vulnerable because of such overconfidence. With that thought in mind, he delivered the low, away slider Robb called for next, which Slynt waved at, and completely missed. Whether or not he was unperturbed or not, Gendry didn't care; it didn't matter as long as the pitch was true. So when Robb showed another slider, he shook it off in favor of the fastball and hurled another heater at the inside corner as hard as he could. Slynt was by no means a respectful man, but even he could not argue with the called strike three, and, after cringing beneath the roar of the attendants, set his bat carefully on his shoulder and walked back to his dugout.

It was almost like an earthquake, how loud the fans were as the ball went around the horn, and Gendry drank it in like a starving man, enjoying the feeling of goosebumps explode across his skin. _This _was his chance, his calling, what he had sacrificed everything for. The crowd at his back, the game in his hand, every possible outcome a result of his hand. He stepped back on the rubber eagerly, avid to be at the next hitter.

The next hitter was Tyrell, undaunted in the face of Gendry's might. The blond-haired man actually exchanged a few words with Aegon Targaryen as the latter stepped on-deck after him, both of them turning a hateful eye towards Gendry. Gendry glared back as Tyrell dropped the chalk to the circle and began to stride towards the plate, and glared longer and harder at Targaryen, as if to promise what was coming for him. Targaryen, after several moments, glanced down at his bat shiftily, and Gendry thought that it was a better feeling than the previous strikeout of Slynt.

Tyrell dug into the box and it was all back to business. Another first pitch fastball was in order, on the outside half. Gendry released it true, and watched Tyrell's body tighten as he swung at it. And through it. For a split second, perplexity crossed the man's face, disbelief mingled with amazement, before he masked himself again, but that was all Gendry needed for the confidence to throw a second one on the second pitch, a ball only a few inches lower than the last one. Tyrell swung again, and only managed to nick it, sending it bouncing foul behind the plate. Robb reached for the next baseball; all the foul one signified to Gendry was that the hitter was down two strikes to none.

Up that count, Robb glanced up at Tyrell and motioned for a slider. Gendry didn't argue. He slid his grip into position and released a breath, sweat gripping the hairs of his neck despite the awful temperature of Winterfell. With a stride and a tiny grunt of effort, he twisted his elbow and let the pitch fly, watching it soar towards the low strike zone, when Tyrell began to swing. Twenty feet before the plate, the ball dropped down without any warning, and Tyrell's compensating bat swatted by without making any contact as the ball spiked in the dirt behind the plate and bounced harmlessly off of Robb's chest protector to land a foot in front of the catcher as the crowd screamed its excitement. Tyrell, in the midst of swearing, dropped his bat and took off for first base on the dropped third strike, but Robb calmly picked the ball off of the ground, stepped out of the baseline, and chucked it to first for the second out before Tyrell was halfway down the line.

He could have sliced the power on the air with a knife as the ball went around the infield. He could barely hear his own thoughts—which wasn't easy in the first place—as the crowd pounded the air with cries and echoes, knowing full well their team was one out away from a World Series-evening win. Gendry took the pitch back from third base and let the roar of the crowd wash over him as he climbed the pitcher's mound for the third hitter, knowing full well who it was.

Aegon Targaryen took one last swing in the on-deck circle and then pounded the knob of his bat into the dirt, knocking off the practice weight and taking a deep breath before he strode to the plate. Gendry watched him come with glee, the silver-haired man looking at the ground, outwardly calm but internally, Gendry could have imagined, just about shivering uncontrollably. For as awed as he was to be there, Gendry knew that Aegon was even less experienced, even less big-league ready, and for all the young slugger's success, with the crowd beating down upon him, talent aside, Gendry had the advantage.

No words were exchanged between Robb and the man as he stepped into the box, taking only a moment to dig his feet in before swinging his bat up into a stance and staring down Gendry. The closer stepped onto the mound, fingering the baseball carefully until he was satisfied with its feel. There was no room for error, but he had every confidence in his ability. He leaned over in the stretch and waited for the sign, which came in the form of a fastball.

It was a short pause at the top of his stance, the crowd almost stilling for a moment with him, before he lunged to the plate, hundreds of cameras capturing the second in time, and released the heater with everything he had. His arm twanged painfully, but the ball couldn't have been thrown better. Down the outside half it went, as it had to Tyrell, and, like Tyrell, Targaryen swung... and missed.

Gendry's eardrums actually rattled as the crowd roared. He tried to block them out, block out his own excitement, but he himself could feel it building as he took the throw back from Robb. Up two outs, two strikes away from a victory. Targaryen glanced down at the end of his bat—not perplexed as Tyrell had been, but nonetheless curious. The image stayed with Gendry as he turned and strode back to the rubber, his mind already locked onto the next pitch.

Targaryen's words returned to him, whispered in the dark on a creepy Casterly Rock night. _Here we are, you and I, a pair of sons in the same place as our fathers were twenty years ago. Who's going to win this time?_

A tinge of anger crept into his excitement as he bent for the next sign, fueling him even as much as his excitement did. Robb hesitated, appearing torn, before finally dropping a second fastball. Gendry accepted it without much debate, bringing himself set and staring menacingly down the pipe of the plate. He exhaled carefully, already striding to the plate and releasing. The ball's trajectory was farther inside than it had been before, but its speed was no less. Gendry watched Targaryen start to swing and then try to stop, straining with the effort of pulling his bat head back from the front of the plate and out of the way of the ball as Robb snagged it from the air. The check swing ended up not mattering; the umpire stepped back from the plate and roared the strike call anyway, and the crowd roared its own cal thereafter.

Gendry hissed as the ball came back, excitement actually pouring out of his body as he turned one last time to the mound, staring up at the scoreboard. Yesterday's score, flopped now in favor of his own team stared him back, along with two's next to the outs and the strikes. Here he stood, poised on the brink of a nine-pitch save in Game 2 of the World Series. The pinnacle of his dreams. The only thing standing in the way was Aegon Targaryen. In that moment, whatever he had said before, Gendry decided that there was a rivalry between the two of them, that went deeper than blood, deeper than honor... it was about them.

And he would win.

He climbed onto the mound, leaning into the sign. The crowd was beyond deafening, not a single seat in the stadium occupied. Participants from both dugouts stood at their rails, peering on desperately at the waning battle taking place at the plate. Gendry had to force himself to breathe, completely surprised that Robb was able to do the same as his captain placed a fist between his legs and finally dropped two fingers.

Gendry nodded and came set. _Your chance_, he whispered to himself. _Your destiny_, he added, voicing both himself and Targaryen, a reminder of dark nights and cold loneliness and everything in between, every hardship he had ever endured to put himself where he was.

With a shudder as he exhaled, he blinked, the stadium surging before him, and then there was no more time for waiting. He was done with waiting. The stride was perfect, his arm was perfect, his release was perfect, and a perfect slider took off for the plate.

He heard the crack of the bat.

He heard the crack of the bat, but he never saw the ball leave it, or dart upwards, or soar a dozen feet over his head to dead center. What he did see was Targaryen's eyes so up and Robb drop his glove and stand slowly, looking in the same direction. He saw Targaryen lower the bat from the swing that had taken his perfect breaking ball, saw the man take one step towards first base at a walk, and then a second. Then those purple eyes dropped from the ball and glanced at Gendry, for just the barest of moments. In the space of less than second, Gendry watched triumph flash brilliantly behind their dark violet shade.

Targaryen tossed his bat away, and his eyes were off Gendry, and Gendry had been... _dismissed_.

Only then did Gendry turn his body around, and find the ball in midair, and realize that forty five thousand mouths had simultaneously gone silent. He might have been able to hear a pin drop on the upper deck, for all of the noise that penetrated what had been a cacophony only a minute before. There was only the crash as the ball slammed off of the centerfield scoreboard and fall to the field near where Edric stood glancing forlornly upwards.

A moment passed, the echo of the blast reverberating inside of Gendry, shattering him, and then the Monarchs' dugout erupted. They were not nearly as loud as the crowd had been, but they were still more than loud enough to turn Gendry upside down. He stared emptily as Aegon Targaryen rounded second and moved off towards third, glanced down at his glove, glanced down at the rubber. He knew exactly what had happened; he knew that the game was now tied; he knew he had blown the save. Only the rising din from the visiting dugout, though, made him realize that whatever chance he had had... was gone.

A murmur rose in the crowd as Gendry's heart thudded soft and heavy, punching his gut with every beat. Robb called his name, neither happily nor angrily. When Gendry turned to him, his friend's face wasn't accusing or furious. His captain simply tossed him a new baseball, sharing a look of determination as it sank into Gendry that the game wasn't over, that the damn inning wasn't over. He forced himself to watch as Targaryen crossed the plate and jogged past Sandor Clegane, who didn't offer a high-five, but even the brutish man waiting to hit next couldn't faze Gendry—not after what had just happened. He blinked, still trying to put words to the emotions running through his chest, the failure that encompassed him. And then, he decided, that was exactly it, as he stared off after Targaryen as the silver-haired man reached his jubilant teammates at the dugout.

He had lost.

Clegane had put one foot in the box when Luwin climbed to the top step of the Direwolves' dugout beneath a disgruntled crowd and began to walk towards the mound. At first, Gendry wondered what the man was doing, and then asked himself why Luwin would want to speak with him in the middle of an inning. Only when Robb glanced at the dirt in defeat and began to jog out, and the infield began to collapse onto the pitcher's mound, did Gendry realize what was happening. His body locked up in shock, disbelief flooding his body. _Everything. Everything_.

Everyone was there by the time the Direwolves' manager reached the mound. Robb patted his back with a grim face and planted himself by Gendry's side, as if standing protectively. Luwin climbed the dirt to the rubber slowly, with a long face, staring downwards until he was within arm's length of Gendry.

Only then did the balding man raise his eyes and sigh, holding out an arm. "Good effort, Gendry."

"Luwin," Gendry replied, having to try very hard not to scoff. "You can't take me out. Not now."

"I have to, Gendry," the manager replied, looking for all the world as if it was something he didn't want to do. "Please just hand me the ball. No one thinks less of you."

"Coach, I need this," Gendry groaned. There was desperation in his voice, and he didn't care. "I need to get this out. I need—" He glanced towards the plate, towards where Sandor Clegane waited for his opportunity to destroy Gendry Waters, and instantly he was back in King's Landing, watching the bat shatter and the ball fly over the outfield fence. His tongue tied itself into knots and the spot and he forgot whatever it was he was trying to say.

There was no way Luwin had escaped noticing, and he reached a little farther for the ball, his gaze becoming sympathetic. "Just trust me, Gendry. You are my closer. But, right now... you need to be out of this game."

It was all a bad dream. He had fallen asleep in the film room that morning. He was going to wake up and be rested and fresh for the game that evening. This wasn't happening at all. He told it to himself a hundred times, but it didn't matter. The ball passed from his hand to Luwin, the manager patted his arm, and then his feet were carrying him towards the dugout on autopilot, the rest of his body unresponsive to his thoughts. He stared at the ground, because there was nothing else to stare at that didn't remind him that he had failed. The crowd watched him silently, their thunder stolen, his walk to the dugout filled with disappointment and letdown. The Monarchs watched him go with glee, no-doubt mourning his exit from the game, wishing he had stayed in to surrender the winning run to Clegane. That was what he would have done, after all; he gritted his teeth against the pain, against his own disappointment, but it stuck to him like glue. Failure, failure, failure; Arya, Ned Stark, baseball. There was nothing and nobody he couldn't fail.

He sat in the corner of the dugout, alone—just as he had always been—and stared at his glove for several minutes admitting to himself that he had missed yet another chance. While the next reliever came into the game and warmed up, he spent a very long few minutes convincing himself anew that he was stubborn and would not succumb to this hate. He wiped his nose from the cold and stared at the field, staring at the scoreboard, telling himself it was still a tie score, telling himself it wasn't the end of the world, telling himself that it was only Game 2. Some of it managed to shovel an inch of hope back into his body, but the rest only reminded him of his failure.

In silence, he watched Sandor Clegane walk. Joffrey Baratheon came up after that and would, no-doubt, have struck out or some such other failure, except that, somehow, the tiny snot was walked, as well. Then a single was surrendered—the crowd showed their first signs of life since Targaryen's home run by groaning—and Clegane scored easily from second base, despite running through a stop sign from the third base coach. The crooked number tacked up on the Monarchs' scorecard, and then the Direwolves _were _losing. Then a third out was recorded, and a smattering of applause sounded. And then Gendry watched the Direwolves go down in order in the bottom of the ninth.

And then the game was over. And they had lost.

He was still sitting in the same place in the dugout, staring at the wall, when Edric slapped his arm later and dragged him into the clubhouse, out of the cold. Gendry missed it, instantly; it had turned him frozen, numb. As his body warmed up, his blankness turned to empty rage, a burst pipe with a river to escape into.

Luwin had few words for them. No blame was asserted, for a second straight day. No one glanced in his direction. No one indicated him. They didn't need to: Gendry blamed himself more than enough for all of them combined. They were dismissed shortly, a group of forty tired, dejected men who were two games away from elimination, four very long, hard games away from a dismally distant victory.

Robb drove him home that night, leaving his motorcycle in the parking ramp. He went directly to his bed and actually slept the entire night through. He dreamt of Arya. He wasn't sure of what, but when he woke he could remember how it felt to hold her in his arms. He had lost her—just like he had lost everything else. Closing up on himself in his bed, he told himself that he would have willingly lost all that he had, all opportunity and chance that he had blown and had yet to blow, for just one more day with her. But all of his chances were gone. He had destroyed them all.

_Look at you_, he growled at himself, after almost an hour of lying await in the ugly grayness of dawn. _You're pitiful. This isn't you. You've hit a rock in the road. You're better than this. It's a new day. The sun just fucking came up. Games 1 and 2 are over, big fucking woop. You're still their fucking closer, and they need you_.

They needed him. Just like Arya had needed him. He closed his eyes against himself, seething, boiling with emotion, and threw the covers off of himself. Sitting up, he jammed his palms into his eyes three times, hard, and climbed to his feet. He had had his night of succumbing to bitterness and depression, and that was all he was allowed. He dressed himself and packed the bag he would need for their road trip, their sojourn to King's Landing.

Robb drove them both to the airport, and it was another woefully quiet transit. Occasionally the captain would glance over at Gendry in the passenger's seat, but Gendy didn't trust himself to speak and did not return the eye contact. Halfway through, beginning to wonder if Robb had lost faith in him, too, he reached to switch on the radio, just for the distracting noise.

The AM sports station Robb had left it on came on in the car. "—_dropping two home games to start the World Series? That's a death sentence. Taking two games out of three from the Monarchs on their home turf? No team did that all _season_. The Direwolves have just about written themselves off already—"_

Gendry slapped the dial moodily, seething inside as the radio station changed.

"—_completely dominant, building up a good case for Series MVP only two games in. A critical home run in both games, when his team needed him the most, including an 0-2 shot off of a Waters breaking ball... if he could get his team to hit like that, Targaryen and the Monarchs could easily run away with the Series in 4 games—_"

He nearly broke the dial with the force of the smash he delivered to it, shutting it off completely and slumping back in his seat, staring forlornly at the dashboard. The silence had been much preferable, he decided. At least in the quiet he could at least pretend that the world hadn't lost faith in him.

From the driver's side, Robb made a sound halfway between a sigh and a cough. "They're just like all the others, you know. Like everyone else who said we wouldn't get this far. If you don't listen, or if you learn to laugh at them instead of getting angry, then everything they insist upon won't come true."

Gendry let a moment of doubt set in, dwelling. "It has so far."

This time, Robb's sigh was not questionable. "Damn it, Gendry, you're letting them get to you. You've been fighting it for months and you've been doing better than any of us thought you could, but now you're losing it. It's unfair for me to ask, but I need you to put if off longer. I need you to be strong."

"I am being fucking strong," Gendry growled, staring out the window.

"I know that. But this is where we need you the most. Last night happens to everyone, okay? Everyone's got bad days—"

"Bad days in the fucking World Series?" Gendry hissed, actually turning to glare at Robb. "Freaking unacceptable."

"You can't just sit around beating yourself up about it," Robb replied. "You might think you're making yourself stronger by doing it, but you're not, you're weakening yourself, and your team. You make yourself stronger by believing in yourself, and you've done a phenomenal job of it lately, when the chips have been down or the times have been hard. We're still in this, man. We lost a few games, whatever. Crazier things have happened than us coming back from this."

Gendry listened to his words, listened to comparisons of strength, and finally shook his head. "I'm aware of that. But it's not as easy as you think it is." It never had been. Every moment where his strength had been "phenomenal" had been a clash of wills that he barely survived. "I'm trying really hard, Robb, but..."

But what? _You've been shoving it off, forcing it back, holding your ground only through the sheer will of digging your heels in. But you've run out of traction, now. It's catching up to you._ And Gendry knew it was true. He was strong, he could admit that to himself without bragging; he'd fought through a childhood of loneliness, pulled himself up by the power of his own back, pressed and battled for everything that he had, had lost, had desired. Yet everyone had a breaking point. He didn't know how far off his was, but he could feeling it closing. Fast.

"I can appreciate how hard it is," Robb said calmly. "I know what you're going through—"

"No, you _fucking _don't!" Gendry swung away from the window, the words jumping out of his mouth without him realizing, but even after the fact he had no desire to take them back. On the contrary, he let his feelings fly. "You _don't _know. None of you know. Not your damn father, not Luwin, not a single one of you know me. Not a single one of you understand what I've gone through, what I go through every day. I have lived a _life _of doubts, and this thing, everyone weighing in on me, the pressure of it... it's fucking killing me. None of you get that. You all have people who love you and who you love, and you're all happy. The only one who I loved is gone. The only one who got me is gone, Robb. She's _gone_."

The silence returned with a force, invading the car absolutely except for the rasped breaths of the aftermath of his explosion. Robb stared out of the windshield, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, his face rigid and expressionless. As always, the calm after the storm brought everything crashing in with a new reality, and Gendry suddenly realized that he had shouted at his best friend, who had been speaking to him quietly and politely, who had been trying to ascertain his condition.

"Robb, I'm... I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Robb replied, after a moment. "You're right. I don't know."

Gendry waited for the man to say something more, to continue where his tirade had broken the conversation in half, but another word wasn't spoken in the car for the remainder of the trip, until they had parked, removed their luggage and silently joined the rest of their team awaiting the plane's departure.

Nor did Robb say a word on the entire flight. Gendry tried to lose himself reading a magazine next to his captain, but the lines melded together and came out meaninglessly while he tried to imagine what was on his friend's mind. He snuck glances, occasionally, but always saw the same thing. Robb sat with his elbow on an armrest, his chin resting on his thumb while he stared out of the window. Gendry was relatively certain he did not move the entire flight. Too afraid to say anything himself, the reliever endured it guiltily.

King's Landing looked as it always did, congested and dirty and unwelcoming. Even still, he grew more depressed than usual as his eyes washed over it. He avoided glancing at the buildings and the smokestacks and the streets as the Direwolves piled into the bus which carried them away from the airport and into the city. The day was already closing, the sun dipping towards the horizon quicker than the last time they had been there, and they were taken directly to the hotel, to no one's complaint. Gendry made no attempt to engage anyone in conversation on the way, but his silence went unnoticed; a somber mood hung over the team. It felt as though they had already lost. Gendry hated it, but he had too many personal demons to worry about it. Robb, who should have been dealing with it, stared out of the bus's window without a word.

The key cards were handed out at the hotel, but the following go-around of ideas for the players to spend their free time in the capitol didn't exist. Where they would usually take advantage of the early evening to enjoy themselves together, none of the Direwolves were eager today. Gendry himself shouldered his pack and went straight to his room. He was not the only one to do so. Robb was not, which he considered a quiet blessing, so he went to their room alone, where he threw his bag untouched into a corner and fell backwards onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. All he could think about was the game the next day, the game they had to win. He couldn't decide whether or not he was ready for it or eager for it.

An unspecified amount of time passed, in which he took no notice of the outside world. One could only stare at the ceiling for so long, but he did it for a very long time without finding desire for anything else. He didn't even look up as he heard Robb's card slide in and out of the door and the handle turn.

His friend entered the room without closing the door. Gendry heard him take several tentative steps into the room and then pause, followed by a thump as he dropped his bag to the ground. There was a pause, in which Gendry didn't bother looking up. Just as he was beginning to wonder what Robb was up to, the captain spoke.

"Get up."

Gendry did look up, then, to find Robb's smoldering gaze on him. Possessed by a surprising wariness and an unexpectedly large conviction, Gendry got to his feet without delay. "Why, what's going on?"

"Come with me." Robb's voice left no room for disobedience, but Gendry had no intention of doing anything except for whatever his captain told him.

His heart began to sink, though, as Robb turned and led Gendry out of the open door of their hotel room. Had the captain rethought their encounter earlier? Had he decided that Gendry's outburst really indicated something was irreparably wrong with the closer's mindset? Gendry sighed internally as Robb led them a short way down the hallway, turning a corner into another corridor of rooms. He was beginning to suspect that Robb would lead him straight to Luwin's room.

Fear turned to resignation when Robb halted abruptly before a specific door and knocked briskly without looking in Gendry's direction. Gendry rubbed at his eyes discreetly and tried to think of what he would say, whether or not he would fight—if Robb was against him, maybe it really was time that he accepted whatever would be decided for him.

Except, when the door opened, it wasn't Luwin who answered it. It was a curious Edric.

"Edric," Robb greeted bluntly. "Do you know any clubs in King's Landing?"

That was not a question that Gendry had been expecting Robb to ask. By Edric's face, the center fielder had been caught completely unawares, as well. Edric glanced his way, and the two of them exchanged a frantic shrug of uncertainty before the shorter man turned back to Robb with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "As a matter of fact... I do. Why?"

"Good." Robb half-turned to Gendry and slapped him lightly on the arm with a backhand. "Take Gendry clubbing."

Edric blinked. Gendry blinked. They looked at each other, as if they were asking if each of them had heard what the other had. Robb's face was perfectly straight, perfectly serious. Edric opened his mouth, glanced sharply at Gendry again, and then blurted, "Excuse me?"

"Take Gendry clubbing tonight," Robb repeated, as stoically as he had the first time. "He needs it. I can't do it because I'm the captain, but you can and I'm letting you so please take him clubbing."

"Robb." Edric glanced helplessly at Gendry, who frantically shook his head to tell the man that he was as confused and clueless as the center fielder was. Fumbling over words for a moment, Edric finally managed, "Robb, it's the night before Game 3. We have a World Series game tomorrow, we can't—"

"Yes, you can. Look." Robb exhaled, looking left and right up and down the hallway to confirm it was empty and then taking a step closer to Edric, peering over the man's shoulder into his room. In a low voice, he murmured, "He needs to get his mind off of things." Robb glanced at Gendry. "You need to get your mind off of things." Turning back to Edric, he continued, "I know this is a bad idea, but I seriously think it's better. Take him out, make him have a good time. Take Mikken with you. Don't fucking drink, just..." He shrugged, gesturing suggestively with his hands. "Make him forget about shit for a while, all right?"

Edric shot a look over his own shoulder and then one at Gendry, thoughtfully. For his own part, Gendry was still trying to recover from the surprise of Robb's inquiry to do anything but stand there watching. "Um... okay... I guess I can do that, but I'm not sure it's such a good idea. I mean, shit can get crazy in these King's Landing places..."

"I don't want to know," Robb said quickly, holding up his hands. "Not now, not later, not ever. I just want you to take him out, have fun, come back, and then we'll get back to our business tomorrow like nothing ever happened. No questions asked."

Gendry finally snapped out of it. "Robb—"

"No," the captain snapped, pointing a finger at Gendry's chest. "You don't get a say. Be quiet."

He turned back to Edric expectantly. Helplessly, the center fielder glanced back and forth once more between the two taller men before he finally shrugged in resignation. "All right. I'll do it."

"Good." Robb turned to Gendry and spoke again before the larger man had the opportunity. "Have fun. Seriously."

Then the team captain stalked past Gendry and disappeared around the bend in the hall again, leaving Gendry with his mouth hanging open, his unspoken objections dying there. Gendry never got the chance to tell Robb that clubbing wasn't going to help, that drinking wouldn't help, that nothing would be able to make him forget long enough for it to matter. All of those things vanished as his route for escape dissipated, and he was forced to turn back to Edric, the two of them wearing equal masks of surprise and uneasiness.

Edric was the first to shrug, then glance down at Gendry's clothes. "You're not going to go dressed like that, are you?"

Gendry glanced down defensively at his sweatpants and gray t-shirt, before realizing his absurdity. "I don't want to go, at all."

"Never mind, doesn't matter." Edric turned back to his room and called inside, "Mikken! Get dressed. We're going out!"

"What?" Mikken's disgruntled voice carried through the open door, the outfielder appearing shirtless in the background with a bewildered expression. "No, we're not. We've got a game tomorrow."

"Robb's orders. Hurry up, we've got to take Gendry to a club. Don't protest, man, let's just do it."

Mikken stared at Edric with a gaping mouth and then at Gendry for a long moment, closing it suspiciously. Then, with a massive shrug and eye roll, he walked back out of view and returned a moment later pulling a sweater over his torso and the top of his jeans, grumbling to himself. His mutterings, Gendry noticed, were not questioning Robb's strange request. "Fucking club. Hate those. You're not going dressed like that, are you?" Gendry opened his mouth to bark something very rude, but Mikken waved it off before it began. "Never mind, let's go."

Working in tandem, the two somehow to drag Gendry into an elevator and down to the lobby. Crossing the first floor forced Gendry into silence, in hopes of avoiding notice or anyone recognizing them, and once he was crammed into the taxi between the two outfielders he had more or less given up on trying to dissuade them. In the space of moments, they had adopted the guise of two men on a mission, and Gendry knew that protesting further would only dig in deeper to the hole.

_Go along with it_, he told himself grudgingly. _Just for a little while. You only have to stay long enough to convince them you're better, then we'll all get back to the hotel and you can forget about it_.

Edric asked the taxi driver to take them to a place of King's Landing where Gendry had never been before, something of an oddity in itself, but Gendry had only been to a club once or twice, and neither experience was a highlight of his life. Under his breath, unable to help himself, he continued to voice his misgivings, but Edric told him it would be good for him with a too-cheery smile on his face and Mikken ignored him completely.

"What if someone recognizes us?" Gendry protested, as the taxi turned down a side street and began to slow. A crowd, large despite the sun barely having set, on the side up ahead, beneath flashing neon signs of an establishment he had never heard of before, showed their destination. He saw people dressed far differently, far _less _than he, pushing together eagerly to get into the club; just the thought of so many gyrating bodies made him uneasy. He could hear the base of the club's music half the street away.

"You kidding me?" Edric replied cheekily, grinning. "Everyone will be way too drunk to recognize us, trust me." He slapped Gendry's arm as the taxi slid to a halt, right in front of the flashing, blaring building. "Come on."

He hesitated, but Mikken shoved him, and he was forced to climb out of the car, finally glancing down sheepishly at his unbecoming state of dress. Cursing himself for his vanity in a situation he didn't want to be in, he noticed that no one else had even glanced in their direction. Everyone was pulsing in the direction of the busy bouncers, already shouting in excitement before they had even gotten inside.

Gendry squinted and winced beneath the brightness and volume, leaning towards Edric. "What is this place, anyway?"

"I know the guy who owns it," Edric said, and then shrugged. "He owns a lot of things around here, actually. Among other places. A rather dominant man, actually. Quietly dominant." Without another word, he pressed into the crowd himself, and Gendry, not without a sigh, was forced to follow.

The crowd was very uncomfortable, and Gendry only wondered what he would feel like once he was inside. A few times he tried to tell this to Edric, a last ditch effort to convince the man how much of a bad idea this entire affair was, when they had to wake up and play in the most important game of any of their careers, but it was too loud and Edric too intent on pressing inside to get off any words. In frustration, he followed, every step he took inside one more step he wished was in the other direction. He took more than one elbow to the side of his ribs painfully, but could never figure out who it was in the logjam. He wished that he hadn't erupted on Robb in the car; that's what had led to all of this.

When all three of them had finally made it past the bouncers, Edric shouting a few words into a large one's ear to gain them passage, they grouped in the back and stared out at the crowd. It was packed on the October night, jammed from one end to the other. The dance floor was a mess. The lights were entirely too bright and flashy. The music playing would have interested Gendry normally, but with the base cranked to a maximum it did a rather good job of hurting his insides.

"What a party, huh?" Edric said, rubbing his hands together and staring out at the dance floor.

Gendry followed his gaze, trying to find something half enjoyable. There were plenty of girls, plenty of women in the house. His eyes traveled over some—some of their eyes traveled over him, too. One or two of them he could've taken a second glance at, but as soon as his eyes fell away the pit in his stomach reminded him of his anguish. No number of pretty girls, whether or not they were clothed—as several on the floor nearly were not—could make him forget.

"Look, guys," he began, "I'm really—"

"Shut up," Edric said. Why the hell did he have to keep grinning? Mikken, at least, could frown. Then again, he was at least ten years older. Some of the girls around could almost be his daughters. "Come on, let's go get some drinks."

"Robb said not to drink..." Gendry muttered pathetically.

"Fine, I'll buy you a bloody Coke. Come on."

Edric conveniently led them along the edge of the dance floor, as if inviting someone to reach out from the crowd and try to drag them in. One or two actually did, at least to Gendry. He was fairly certain one of them was a three-hundred-pound male that he barely escaped with his life. They all managed to shake off any attempts on their way to the bar, where Edric loudly ordered them three sodas, earning a very rude glare from the bartender before they were delivered. The center fielder passed them around and started throwing his back like it was a shot glass.

"Come on, dude," Edric said, nudging Gendry with an elbow. "This is where you feel alive. You need to get going."

"I don't know about this."

"Bloody indecent, this is," Mikken supplied to him, on his other side.

"Ah, you just have to get out there and get going," Edric said, half-heartedly trying to push Gendry towards the dance floor. "Go find a girl. Get her number. Make out with her. Do something."

Gendry sighed, wanting to tell Edric that it was the last thing he wanted to do. Instead, he let his eyes wander the crowd. With the pulsing light, it was difficult to make out any features, but he searched anyway, half because Edric told him to, half to see if he could actually catch a glimpse of anyone who would have caught his attention. That girl was too tall, that one wearing way too much makeup. That one was red-haired, that one clearly thought she was the center of the universe. That one was actually a man. Gendry kept looking, but everywhere he looked he found himself searching for a girl who didn't know that she was the most beautiful one in the room, and nowhere could he find her. She didn't exist, not in this club. There was nothing for him here. He had wasted his time.

Then, near the door, something did catch his eye. A flash of silver hair.

His eyes darted back, and he was shocked to find that he had seen true. Beneath the silver hair reflecting the arcing light of the club stood Aegon Targaryen, newly into the club. He wore a dark jacket and jeans, standing looking over the scene with a confident smile over his face. Gendry's jaw fell open as he observed the man, completely shocked to see his opponent in the club. Where Gendry was hiding in the back, Aegon stood out front, murmuring a word to a young man on his right, surveying the establishment with a glare intent to enjoy. Whoever the man was otherwise, it was clearly his environment much more than Gendry's. The thought only made Gendry angry, stewing in the bottom of his coke bottle, griping that yet another thing belonged to Targaryen instead of him.

Almost offhandedly, he glanced at the girl on Targaryen's arm, whom he had almost taken for granted. The coke battle shattered in his hand.

Edric jumped in surprise, bumping into the man next to him, who cried out in protest. Mikken cursed under his breath. Edric, after a muttered apology, turned back to Gendry with just the barest bit of irritation. "Dude! What was that for?"

Gendry barely heard him. Arya Stark stood at the front of the club, one hand tentatively wrapped around Aegon's arm. She was wearing a jacket and jeans like Aegon, he was actually relieved to see, but the sight of her nearly knocked him dead. It had been months since he had seen her. The last time had been in the batting cage, when she screamed at him to get away from her. Which he had done.

In the interim time, he had completely forgotten how beautiful she was. Her grey eyes were glancing around the club, clearly overwhelmed, the flashing lights dimly bouncing off of her irises. Her hair was down, uncurled and unstraightened, the usual wavy naturalness it usually was, that Gendry loved so much. Her face was still perfect, still short and tight. It looked perhaps a bit thinner than the last time he had seen her, but otherwise it might have been yesterday that they had gone their separate ways. He remembered the tears on her cheeks that day, how they had cut into him, how they had thundered into his heart like bullets. The strength he had needed to walk away had been nothing like he had ever needed before, and even now it weighed down upon him. The mere sight of her, an oasis in a desert of misery, nearly broke his knees; they wobbled and nearly toppled, only keeping him upright through a desperate grasp for the bar he barely clutched. In an instant the only thing that he could think about was her, was going to her, was needing her, was telling her that he loved her and would love her until he died.

Her hand was on Aegon Targaryen's arm.

Her hand was on Aegon Targaryen's arm. His fist curled; tiny pieces of broken glass bit in his palm, but he didn't notice. Inside of his chest, a flame hotter, darker, more painful than anything he had ever directed at Edric Dayne sprung up. His eyes flashed towards Targaryen again, and he wanted nothing more than to kill the man. Wrap his hands around the son of a bitch's throat and squeeze. Throttle until the silver hair fell out of his bed, until his purple eyes popped out of his head. Arya was his, his, _his_.

That was when Aegon Targaryen saw him. Their eyes slid over one another like two raging hurricanes, and locked as though they were stone. Gendry knew, in that moment, that, whether or not it had existed before, there was indeed a war between him and Targaryen. Their names, the World Series, Arya... Gendry hated the man. He was one short inch from the brink, one step away from charging across the club and tackling the man into a fistfight.

Targaryen smiled, a smug, victorious expression. He leaned over and whispered something to Arya, who glanced up at him and smiled back. Gendry died. Then they both turned away from him, moving off into the crowd.

He fell back against the counter, the loser of everything. His fall must have been violent, because Edric reached out both hands as if to catch him. "Whoa! Gendry! Are you all right?"

"I'm..." He shook his head to clear it. He couldn't think. Everything was broken. "I'm really not feeling this, guy. I really..."

"Come on, man," Edric replied. "Seriously, let's go out and you can—"

"Edric," Mikken cut in swiftly, quietly. By a glance, Gendry could see his cold, stone expression. The man's eyes were towards the entrance, and Gendry knew that they had both seen the same thing. "Don't."

"Not you, too," Edric sighed, shaking his head. "Both of you, you need to—"

Mikken shoved off of the bar and brushed past Gendry, taking Edric by the arm and leaning low to whisper into his ear. His head jerked in a manner that was supposed to be surreptitious as Edric's face turned from eager to horrified. Both of their eyes flashed out into the crowd again, Edric searching for the crippling sight both of the others had already seen. Gendry didn't join them. He didn't want to see. He couldn't see. He was already broken.

It was his opportunity. They were both looking the other way. He seized it.

Turning, he slinked away from the bar more stealthily than he could ever remember beings, merging with the crowd and gone before either of the outfielders could notice. He didn't look anywhere; he was too afraid of what he might see. Pressing straight through the crowd, straight through the dance floor, he wasn't aware of the bodies he was rather heavily sweeping aside in his earnest need to reach the door, to get out of the fucking club. The closer he got, the quicker he moved, not looking back, not looking anywhere. He pushed his way through the torrent still trying to get into the club, pushed his way out into the street, past the exclaiming bouncers, and then he started walking. Mindlessly. It didn't matter where. He just went, not caring in which direction it was as long as it wasn't back. No one called his name. Edric and Mikken didn't catch up. He hoped he'd lost them. They could just join his collection.

Sometime later, a blank except for pain, he didn't think he could walk any longer. Under normal circumstances, he could have, but his heart was constricting, his lungs collapsing with it, and with a groan of pain he stopped on the sidewalk somewhere, surrounded by happy signs to happy restaurants and happy stores, leaning against a happy wall and listening to the happy bustle of the city's evening.

Gendry sank to the ground and listened to his sucking breath, listened to the gulps of air he forced into his body only barely. He glanced about the signs, at the cars passing by, at the people giving him strange glances as they hustled past. He didn't recognize where he was, but that didn't matter. That was better, actually; somewhere he didn't know, something new, something that didn't cause him pain. It didn't matter. There was enough pain inside of him to more than make up for the rest of the world combined.

How long he sat there, thinking about Arya, wanting to cry, wanting to die, wanting to forget, wanting to be stronger, he didn't know. It must have been hours, spent running back through the only date they'd ever had, the only night they'd spent together, the secrets they had passed to each other in the dark. How much he loved her. How much he treasured her smile. How beautiful she was, even when she looked horrible. How much he wanted to tell her that he had been wrong, that he would give up everything, that he work three jobs, that he would sacrifice anything and everything just for her happiness. That was all he wanted in the world. Her happiness.

_And if she is happy?_

That was a startling thought, in a world where he didn't think he could be any more surprised than he already was. He blinked quite a few times, trying to wrap his mind around it, before his mind found a rational thought process behind it. Was she? Robb had told him that she was as miserable as he, but that had been weeks before. She had always been stronger than him, and he had no doubt that he loved her more, that no matter what her brother had told him, that he, Gendry, had been the one who was struck hardest by their end.

She had smiled in the club, she recalled. Smiled at Targaryen. The thought made him draw a shuddering breath, almost made him double over in pain. It was the first time he had seen her smile since that night, since before he had broken her heart. It wasn't the biggest smile of hers that he had ever seen... but Targaryen had made it. Not him.

He lowered his head into his hands, contemplating. Was she happy? _Has she moved on from me?_ It took him several moments to admit it, but he could finally say to himself that it was a good thing she had. If she was experiencing anything even close to his pain... then he wanted it to end for her. He never wanted her to feel anything like his anguish. Even if... He shivered, closing his eyes. If Aegon Targaryen could make her smile, could make her happy...

_If he makes her forget..._

He sat like that for a few moments, trying to accept the endgame. Tears prickled at his eyes, but they were long overdue and did no good. Crying couldn't help him now. Nothing could.

Gendry pressed against the wall and coughed, trying to clear his throat of the multitude of lumps that had formed. He staggered to his feet, as unstable as if he were drunk. Glancing about, he could see that there was no one within a block or two that he could recognize, which was, all things considered, a very good thing.

It was a very big effort to consider what to do next. He was exhausted—heartbreak and acceptance of things that made one want to kill oneself did that—and wanted to sleep, but the thought of returning to Robb and the hotel room at that moment nearly made him sick. Glancing about for alternatives, all he saw within close-walking distance were a few restaurants and high-end stores. And a bar.

His eyes locked on the bar and he decided on the spot that he was past the point of caution. He had just enough presence of mind and willpower to look both ways before he crossed the street, but he didn't hesitate for an instant before crossing to the establishment and pressing inside, stalking immediately to the counter and sitting down stiffly onto a stool without even glancing about.

There weren't many people around, anyway. A few in a corner, nursing solitary drinks, just like him. Silent, sad drinking partners, they were. Gendry liked them. He was already drunk on depression, and didn't care.

The bartender seemed to pick up on his mood, approaching only warily, after a minute. "Can I get you something?"

"What's the strongest thing you have?"

The question earned him a wry glance and a long moment of consideration. He should have looked at the man, he knew, but he didn't care enough to raise his eyes from the bar. After a long moment, the bartender shifted and answered, "I have a bottle of tequila. You look like you've had a rough night. I'll knock it down a few dollars for you."

"Thanks," Gendry mumbled, and the bartender moved off to pull a dusty bottle off of the back of a shelf. The amber liquid was splashed into a glass, to a considerable level, and then placed before Gendry.

"Take care with it," the bartender warned softly. Gendry nodded in thanks, and then the man set the bottle down next to his glass with a sympathetic tap of the counter before marching away. Gendry watched him go for a moment in surprise, but then decided that he didn't care. He threw back the first glass without noticing, and was already filling it again before the man had reached the other end of the bar.

It had been a while since he had had a drink, but the first two glasses did nothing to distract him. His goal wasn't to get drunk, but his pain was still evident and his eyesight completely unimpaired as he poured himself a third, and he was starting to consider just going back to the hotel and trying to sleep off his pain until he could find some distraction in the World Series. Which he shouldn't have been drinking before. Where Aegon Targaryen, who shouldn't have been in a club the night before, would be competing. Where Arya would probably be rooting for her new happiness. Which wasn't him. Which was _against_ him.

He threw down the next two glasses so quickly that he almost choked, and poured a fifth, setting the two-thirds empty back on the counter and staring at it emptily with his chin resting in his hand.

A moment later, the counter rumbled, the floor shaking as a large man sat down hard on the stool next to Gendry. Normally, he would have been annoyed by the intrusion, but four glasses deep and a heaping of agony into his night, he could care less. He didn't even glance at whoever it was, finding the bottle and full fifth glass more interesting than anyone else who could possibly have sat down beside him. In his peripheral vision, he did see the bartender's lower half cautiously walk down the bar and stop before the newcomer.

"Can I get you something?"

The voice that answered was low, guttural, furious. "Whiskey."

"We don't carry whiskey, sir."

"Do you think I give a fuck?"

The bartender sighed. "I can't help you, sir. Maybe you'd be best served somewhere else."

The guttural voice turned into a harsh growl, dangerously close to a warning. "Then bring me whatever the hell you do have. It better be fucking strong."

After a moment of hesitation, the bartender pulled a glass from below the counter and set it atop the bar. Reaching for the bottle he had placed in front of Gendry, he muttered, "May I?" Gendry waved a careless hand in his direction, and the bartender poured a fair-sized amount of tequila into the new glass. Setting the now-nearly empty bottle down onto the counter, he pushed the drink at the newcomer. "Bottoms up."

Gendry watched it tiredly. Without thanks, it was seized off of the counter by a massive hand, lifted to an ugly face, and drained. Gendry blinked, having to squint against the light of looking up and the tipsiness beginning to affect his system. Distantly, he was able to make out the ugly burns covering half of the large man's face, able to see the giant rippling muscles of the man's arm as he finished off his drink and clapped the glass back down on the bar. His mouth fell open in disbelief.

"You."

Sandor Clegane looked up coldly, as if intending to scare. Their eyes locked, two men sitting next to each other at the bar, two mortal enemies. Gendry had gone through far too much that night to be intimidated by the glare; they both sat for many moments, watching each other, apparently trying to come to terms with who they were next to.

Clegane's expression was as dark as his, he realized, as long and tired, if much more angry, but, finally, the man just shook his shaggy head and placed both hands on the bar, instead of taking a wild swing at Gendry's head like the closer had been expecting. "It's just that kind of fucking night."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Gendry demanded.

"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" Clegane retorted in a soft roar. He reached over and seized the bottle from next to Gendry, dumping the rest of its contents into his glass and gulping it down brutally. "I'm getting drunk. Let me do it in peace."

Gendry watched him for a moment and then turned back to the bar himself. "That actually sounds like a good idea."

And it was. For about ten seconds.

"What are you in for?"

From Clegane's throat came a rumble. "What the fuck did I just say?"

"Just, if you want to talk."

"What in the fucking seven hells makes you think I would ever want to talk to you?"

Gendry massaged his temples. He had already had too much to drink, even if he wasn't actually drunk. "Look, I'm just trying to be fucking polite, all right? Fine, drink your shit by yourself. I just thought you might want to talk."

"Not to you," Clegane barked lowly, staring at his glass. If Gendry hadn't known better, he would have said the man was close to tears. But he would sooner see a tree cry than Sandor Clegane. "Right now, I'd much rather kill you than talk to you."

"Know why I'm in?" He had to stop talking. His otherwise unflappable tongue was loose. The tequila was to blame.

"No, I don't, and I swear to the gods it had better stay that way..."

"It was a girl."

Clegane's knuckles cracked. "Oi. Bring me two more bottles of anything. One to drink, and one to smash over this fucker's head."

Gendry was beyond caring. "It was a girl, and I broke her heart because I thought it was the right thing to do. I broke her heart because I thought I was protecting her." He paused, waiting for Clegane's onslaught to continue, wondering why he was still talking. To his mild surprise, the large man said nothing. "I thought I was making an honorable sacrifice, that she'd be better without me." The bartender approached warily and placed _one _bottle between the two of them, pulling both of their glasses towards him and refilling them with something the tasted far less strong than the tequila the two of them had destroyed. Placing his back on the counter and hissing through the burning of his throat, Gendry continued, "Well, tonight I found out that it worked. She's better without me. She's happier without me. And now that I see it, I can't stand it. I hate myself."

"You're pathetic." Clegane took the bottle and swigged directly from it, and then, surprisingly, offered it to Gendry. After narrowing his eyes, Gendry cautiously took it and mimicked the man's actions, listening to the large man as he unexpectedly added, "And you're not alone."

Glaring, he placed the bottle back on the counter and tried to decide how many Cleganes were actually sitting next to him. "What does that mean?"

Clegane turned to him, and for a moment or two it seemed like the larger man would either kiss him or pummel his face in. The moments passed, and Clegane did neither. After a lengthy sigh, coated with the smell of alcohol and it slammed into Gendry's nose, Clegane took a hoarse breath and said, "I understand you."

"Bull fucking shit," Gendry swore. "Nobody understands me."

"I do."

"How could you possibly understand me?"

"Because I did the same fucking thing, Waters."

Gendry blinked, trying to figure out what Clegane meant. When he finally did, he guffawed and shook his head. "Bull shit."

"I did," Clegane insisted, taking another swig from the bottle.

"How?"

Clegane glared down at the bottle, clearly debating, and spent a long moment lifting it to his lips and then lowering it without a drink. Finally, the large man snarled in disgust and clinked it down in front of Gendry, bending to lean over the bar with two muscular arms, shaking his head. "It was a mistake. It was all a mistake. I never should have fallen for the girl. She wasn't mine to have."

"Who was it?" Gendry asked.

"Sansa Stark."

That Clegane had answered at all made Gendry ponder just how drunk the both of them were. He glanced at the bottle, questioning the alcohol content of the drink before he accepted the fact that he was far too wasted already to read the label. When he was finally past the shock of the answering, he graduated to the shock of the answer itself, and the memory of Arya telling him that her sister was sleeping with Sandor Clegane replayed itself a million times in his head in the space of a drunk second.

He blinked, several times, and finally sputtered in disbelief. "You're in love with Sansa Stark?" Clegane didn't answer; that was answer enough. Gendry raised his eyebrows and reached for the bottle. "Damn, Clegane. That's got to be the most fucked up shit since—"

"Fuck you, Waters. Fuck you."

"I'm just saying," Gendry answered. The bottle missed his lips, and he decided he had better set it back on the counter. After doing so, he was so far gone that he slapped Clegane on the shoulder, which earned him a curt backhand that probably would have torn his arm off had they both been perfectly sober. "I never knew you had it in you."

"Shut the fuck up."

"No, I'm serious. I mean, I surprised myself when I fell in love with Arya, but you just take the fucking cake..."

"What?"

Gendry glanced at the man. "What what?"

"Arya," the man repeated, his face contorted in something close to a grimace. "You said Arya."

Gendry realized that he had. "No, I didn't."

"Arya Stark," Clegane said, as if the name pained him. With a growl of disgust, he glanced away shaking his head. "You're fucking telling me that this girl you're so torn up over is fucking Arya Stark?"

"Nope," Gendry said. _Fuck me_.

"I don't fucking believe this." Both of them shook their heads and glared at each other, and then at the bottle. Gendry rubbed at his head as Clegane added, "The little wolf bitch? _She's_ the girl you broke the heart of? I fucking never would have thought she had a heart to break. She was tough as nails."

"Yes. She is." Gendry sadly glanced downward, and then squinted at Clegane. "And you and the other Stark. Damn... I would have thought you would break her in half."

He expected the comment to earn him some sort of violent response—he almost welcomed it—but instead Clegane's angry expression almost vanished. Almost. "I did, too. At the beginning. She was so small... so... fragile." He paused. Gendry waited, patiently. "I don't know what she ever saw in me. I don't know what made her think I was a good man..."

"Beats me."

"...but she did. The only one who ever did." Clegane scratched at his face, at his bruises, raking fingers across ugly skin, skin Gendry thought would make any sane girl cringe. "I only wanted to protect her. The shit told me that if I didn't back off, if I didn't go away, _she _would be the one who paid the price. So I did. I backed off. And when she came back demanding explanations, all I could say was that I did it for her... and she..."

Clegane stopped talking; on any other man, Gendry would have described the action as choking up. He was almost—_almost_—embarrassed for the man, and, for reasons he couldn't have truthfully stated, he tried to cover the man's feeling by speaking. "Her father made me do it. He said he'd cut me, that it would be the end of my career if I didn't end it. I didn't want to do it. But if he cut me... where would I go? I wouldn't have anything to give her, nothing to contribute. She would have been miserable. She screamed at me, but I did it anyway. I was stupid. I wish I hadn't. I wish I could go back."

"That sounds pretty fucking stupid to me."

"I think it's pretty fucking stupid that you actually found a girl who considered you anything but ass-ugly."

Clegane stared at him, distantly, and shook his head after a pause. "Fucking Stark girls."

Gendry sighed. He reached for the bottle and tipped a little bit of the liquid into Clegane's empty glass, sloshing what was left and staring at it before he raised the bottle high, staring at Clegane. "Fucking Stark girls."

Staring at him as if he was brainless for several long moments, Clegane finally picked up his glass, reaching over to touch it ever so slightly to Gendry's bottle before they both tossed them back, a quiet salute between the unlikeliest of drinking partners, an ode to love of Starks gone wrong, the only tribute their breaking hearts would get.

"Well, I think you two have had quite enough to drink."

Both Gendry and Clegane plopped their drinking vessels back onto the counter and twisted in their chairs to glance behind them, where the voice had come from. At first, Gendry found that he couldn't see anybody and believe that he had imagined the voice out of nowhere. Then, for some reason, he glanced downward, at found himself looking at a man who probably wouldn't have stood higher than his waist. It was an ugly man, height aside. Gendry had to stare at him blinking for several moments before he was to distinguish any features through the buzz of the alcohol, but he finally found, with annoyance, that he recognized the man. Not by appearance, for they had never met, but more than once he had heard the description, and he knew by definition that the man's appearance usually spelled trouble.

It was Clegane who growled, though. "What the fuck do you want, Imp?"

"It was actually you I came looking for, dog," Tyrion Lannister replied, crossing his arms. The man was wearing a little tailored suit, the tie knotted pristinely below his short, stunted neck. "And I must say, my disappointment in you grows by the minute. To find you drinking in a bar the night before a World Series game? Not something general managers aspire to do every day."

"Go fuck yourself," Clegane muttered.

Lannister cocked his head to one side as Gendry watched, trying to puzzle out the situation. The short man turned his eyes onto the closer, then, disdain morphing into curiosity. "Him, I was expecting to find here. He comes here often. You, Mr. Waters, on the other hand... not something I would expect. You, too, have a game to play tomorrow, and my fantastically intuitive mind would have picked you as someone who took such things more seriously."

Gendry glanced at Clegane, and shrugged. "Go fuck yourself."

To his surprise, Lannister laughed, and then approached the stool on the other side of Gendry. Both of the other men watched as Lannister stepped onto the rung, and not without effort and in a fully tailored suit, hopped up onto the stool with a sigh of exertion. "That bad, eh? Well, I'd best join you. Misery knows no company like a dwarf."

Once more, the original two men exchanged a look, and then looked down at the counter as Lannister ordered a much more mild drink from the bartender, and much more politely, as well. As it was being gathered, Lannister turned to Gendry. "A most interesting gathering, this, though. Of all the people I would have imagined in a bar together, you two are some of the last couples I would name."

"It was a co-in-ci-dence," Gendry said, enunciating his words carelessly. "I was here first. He invaded my space."

"Indeed," Lannister commented. "And how was it that you two did not immediately kill each other?"

The bartender set Lannister's drink before him, and Gendry watched the little man pick it up and down it much quicker than would have normally been expected. "Other things on the mind, I guess."

"And what would that be?" Lannister asked, watching of them with eyes that seemed to know too much. "The lost love of Stark women, perhaps?"

Gendry opened his mouth to deny it. He wasn't even surprised; too much had happened that night to even act like it, anymore. After a moment of consideration, he decided that it wasn't even worth denying, and clamped his mouth shut, to find Clegane doing precisely the same thing at precisely the same time.

Lannister grinned, but it was a soft grin, not malicious or tyrannical. Softly, he said, "I thought as much."

"Go away, Imp," Clegane growled, glancing out of the corner of his eye down at Tyrion. "You're not wanted here."

"I beg to differ," Lannister replied, sighing. "Let me share in your drink, gentlemen. Tonight is not a night of exclusion. There's been plenty of that in the past. In the morning, we'll find ourselves on separate sides of the aisle once again, and any sympathy tonight will vanish. Let's pool our pain together and ride it out as one."

Gendry bristled. "How do you even know about it? About us?"

"And the Stark daughters?" Gendry nodded, and Lannister sighed. "My living is based off of acquiring information, Gendry. What I know that nobody else does, and what I know about things that many other people know about, would probably surprise you. As to you and Arya Stark... well..." The little man grimaced and Gendry did, too. "If someone wanted to, there wouldn't be many people who did not know about that, by now. In the way of internal baseball gossip, that was a relatively easy morsel to gobble up." As Gendry glared at the countertop, wondering just how many people knew, Lannister threw a thumb towards Clegane dismissively. "In his case, the relationship was of personal importance to my family. Either way... you both have my sympathy. Would that I could, your broken hearts would be mended. All of your pain would be taken away."

Clegae grunted hatefully. Gendry shuddered. "What do you know of our pain?"

"My heart was broken, once, too."

Both of the other men scoffed. Gendry exclaimed, "When? How?"

A refill was placed before Lannister. Practicing more restraint that either Gendry or Clegane had shown that night, he sipped at the drink with distant eyes. "A long time ago. The details aren't important. It was cruel and it was unjust and it was not my fault. Just as in the case of both of yours. So, I believe I know exactly what you're going through, and if I could I would gladly spare either of you from it."

"Why?"

Lannister glanced at Gendry and found the younger man's eyes trained directly on him. Gendry watched the small man pause, and then... _squirm_. "Well, in Clegane's case, while she was dating my nephew I found that I had a soft spot for the girl, and she seemed genuinely happy in her affair with the dog. For her sake, I would have them together."

Gendry watched Lannister drink, growing impatient. "And in mine?"

"In yours." Lannister sighed and set down his drink, before waving his hands nonchalantly. "Why not? You're both drunk, I'm probably going to get there myself, we'll all probably forget this in the morning." He turned on his stool so that he was facing Gendry and placed the palms of his two hands together in front of him. "I have a bit of a confession to make, Gendry. Your falling out with young Ms. Stark?" The man paused, but Gendry shook his head to signify his lack of understanding. Lannister spread his hands; his ugly face was pained. "It was partially my doing."

It was so ludicrous that Gendry laughed. "What?"

"I'm afraid it's true," Lannister replied.

"How could that be true?" Gendry demanded, looking at Clegane to see if the larger man could believe the crazy statement. Clegane was bent over the bar, his eyes screwed up, looking as if some dark memories were rushing through his head.

"It was politics," Lannister explained quietly. As he spoke, as the words sunk in, Gendry realized, drunkenly, that the man was speaking the truth. "I was offered something if I removed you from the Direwolves equation. Initially..." He sighed once again. "Well, Gendry, honestly, I thought that you would be selfish. I thought you would take the girl. I thought you would leave behind the team and be happy with her. Instead, you chose the team, and I'll have you know that threw a monkeywrench into all of my own plans."

"What are you talking about? You're saying _you_ told Ned Stark about us?"

"No," Lannister said. "But I... arranged it. Indirectly." The man hesitated. "I've done some cruel things in my life... but not many wrong things. I think what I did to you and Arya Stark was one of those wrong things, though. It was your loss at my gain, and I'll actually have you know that it's one of the guiltier things I've ever done. It's my fault your heart is broken, Gendry. It's my fault that you're sitting here in a bar, drinking with..." He glanced strangely at Clegane. "...that."

Gendry glared at the short man, as he looked away from Clegane, and back down at the drink. In his state, he was having a great deal of difficulty understanding everything the dwarf was saying, but what he could decipher left him feeling surprisingly... empty. He considered the words, and he thought that he would find himself furious. He reached for anger, for bile, for hatred rising inside of him. Past the alcohol, his pain was still liquid, flowing fluidly over him. He hated it; he hated himself. He wanted it off, he wanted it away. He thought that he would hate whoever had caused it, if he hadn't caused it himself. He expected to have to physically hold himself back from attacking the little man next to him, unfair as the fight would be. Instead, he felt... nothing.

"I can understand..." Lannister began, and then chuckled dryly. "Actually, I would expect for you to hate me. I'm actually surprised you haven't began screaming."

Half-wondering the same thing, Gendry ran a finger across the top of his glass. "What would it change? My heart would still be broken. Arya would still be gone. Attacking you won't bring anything back."

"Hitting him might make you feel better," Clegane supplied unhelpfully. "The gods know I would, if I was sitting where you are."

Gendry only shook his head. "It wouldn't make me feel any better. I don't know what could."

"Gods, you're so pitiful," Clegane hissed. "Why don't you just go out into the streets and find some whore to suck your cock for a couple of dollars? It's King's Landing, you'd be shocked at the opportunities."

"And what the fuck would that solve?"

"Well, it would prove that you actually had a cock, for one thing, I'm starting to seriously question it over here..."

At that, just barely, anger flashed inside of Gendry. He glanced up from the counter and felt his fists curl. With careful movements, using every fiber of his being to keep from stumbling as he stood, he pushed off the bar stool and squared off against Clegane, standing a few paces away from where the man still stood hunched over the bar.

"All right, asshole," Gendry growled. "You've had your little cry and I've had enough of your mouth. I'm drunk enough that I don't care. Let's go out back and finish this."

"If you think I'll pay _you_ a couple of dollars to suck my cock, then I'm sorry to burst your bubble—"

"No, I'm going to fucking bash your face in," Gendry snarled, pulling a wad of bills he thought was something close to what he owed out of his pocket, setting them on the counter. "You and I are going to go outside, we're going to fight, and I'm going to fuck you up, because you piss me the fuck off."

Lannister cleared his throat. "Now, I'm not too sure that's such a good idea. If you'll both recall, there _is _actually a World Series game tomorrow that is within both of your interests to at least be physically capable of playing in."

Clegane barked a laugh, glancing comically over his shoulder at Gendry. "Listen to the Imp, boy. You don't want to embarrass yourself and get killed in the process."

"Don't worry about it," Gendry replied. "I'll just call your brother and have him bruise up the other side of your face for you. Then no girl will ever look at you again and you won't have to worry about your whiney, crying heart."

He watched Clegane's back muscles tense up. The man's entire body went rigid, and he knew his goal had been achieved. Very carefully, with a tiny shaking of rage that might simply have been the alcohol inhibiting Gendry's vision, Clegane stood and dropped his own amount of money on the counter, turning to Gendry with eyes that promised murder. "Fine, Waters. We can send you back to your precious puppies broken in half. Remember, you fucking wanted this."

And Clegane turned and walked out of the front door of the bar, and Gendry, in his drunken, heartbroken, pained state, followed, realizing that he was entering a fistfight in the streets, drunk, the day before Game 3 of the World Series. He didn't care in the slightest; he probably wouldn't have if he was sober, either.

Either Lannister had decided that it wasn't worth another objection or he, too, was too drunk to continue protesting. Gendry's last glance over his shoulder as he walked out to fight Sandor Clegane was a small, sad man alone at a bar, surrounded by the heartbreak of three.

* * *

When he stumbled back into the hotel where the Direwolves were staying, Gendry was sober enough to realize that entering that fight had been perhaps one of the more stupider things he had ever done. Exactly the type of thing Arya would have berated him for, once.

He had not won, to put it lightly. Nothing seemed broken, but a dozen bruises or more would cover him in the morning. If it wasn't morning, already; Gendry wasn't quite sure. He was bleeding from a number of places, including a cut on his forehead that would probably be complemented with a black eye. How he was going to explain any of it to anybody was beyond him, but so was caring. The fight had solved nothing; he had landed his own fair share of blows, but it was nothing compared to what he had been dealt, and his heart was in as many pieces—if not more—than when he'd begun.

Arya was still gone. There was still a game to play in the morning. Aegon Targaryen still had what he wanted. All he had was fuck himself up worse. There was nothing to show for it, except maybe a very creepy connection to Sandor Clegane that had ended with them beating the shit out of each other.

He wallowed in his pain in the elevator. All he wanted was to sleep. And forget. Gods, how was he supposed to explain any of it to Robb? For a moment, he considered what Arya would have said if she could have seen him, and it actually made him laugh to imagine her insults. But that only hurt worse. He swallowed and grimaced at the pain al the motions caused him. If he hadn't gone to the club, he wouldn't have seen her. He would have been in pain, but not... this.

The elevator dinged onto his floor, and he struggled to his feet enough to stumble out into the deserted hallway. Trying to rehearse what he was going to say to Robb only made his head hurt worse; he was flat-out fucked. Fucked for the game. Fucked for his career. It was all over. And he didn't care.

Finding his door was a challenge, but he finally did. Leaning his head against and taking a deep breath, hoping to the gods that Robb was asleep and he could avoid a confrontation until the morning, he dug into his pocket for his card key, only to discover that he had forgotten it earlier. Or lost it along the way. Either option was plausible. He almost sat down on the ground and gave up, but that would have been too difficult. Instead, swallowing his guilt at possibly waking his friend and preparing himself for the inevitable lecture, screaming match, or disappointment that would be to follow, he knocked on the door.

"Gendry?"

Gendry shifted, opening his eyes and pushing himself frantically off of the door, blinking. Robb stood in the hall with him, holding a container filled with ice, looking at him in surprise and relief. Then his captain's eyes narrowed as he saw Gendry's cut, bruised face and the tear or three that marred his t-shirt. Knowing that he couldn't—at all—Gendry burst out with, "I can explain."

Robb stared with a gaping mouth for a few moments longer and then slowly closed it. "Edric and Mikken told me you gave them the slip."

"Yeah, they—" He remembered the club, his loss, his anger. "I'm sorry. I couldn't stay there. I just—" He was so tired. He raised his hands and pressed at his eyes, completely lost and completely hurt and completely finished with everything. "Yeah, I'm fucking drunk. The day before a World Series game. I know that I'm in a fuck ton of trouble and everything else, but all I want right now is to sleep. Maybe when I wake up it'll all be better. If it's not..." He released a shuddering breath, and looked down, unable to meet Robb's eyes any longer. "Can you just let me in so I can go to bed and we'll talk or whatever in the morning?"

"Wait," Robb said, as Gendry held out his hand for the key card. "All right, sure, but first, there's something you should—"

The door to their room opened, an answer to his belated knock. And when Gendry turned to cover his surprise by discovering who it was, he was met for the second time with a shockingly unexpected view of Arya Stark, her eyes locked on him as if he was the only thing in the world.

Gendry had no defense to stop it. Twice as drunk as he'd ever been in his life, bleeding lightly in multiple places, having been dealt several successive and none too gentle blows to the head, and faced with the unexpected and horrifically beautiful visage of the girl he loved...

...he sank to his knees and flatly passed out.


End file.
